On January 8, 2005, Geoff Pevere, then film critic for THE TORONTO STAR, wrote a piece on D. W. Griffith that had more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

Below is the correspondence that followed.

1. Jan. 8, 2005. 12:34 PM
D.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent movie The Birth of a Nation conquered a new frontier of filmed storytelling, but generated a powerful backlash for its portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as the valiant heroes of the U.S. Civil War.
A confederacy of Klansmen
GEOFF PEVERE <http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Page&cid=970599109774&ce=Columnist&colid=969907620784>
ARTEFACTS

Among the many places in America where the Ku Klux Klan rode to the rescue 90 years ago, perhaps the most conspicuous was the White House.
In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson insisted on it. He’d been hearing about this “photoplay,” directed by the already-famous David Wark Griffith, that people across the country were lining up to pay the unprecedented sum of $2 a head to see.
The year also marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the War Between the States, and popular interest in the still-vivid event was high.
The photoplay was called The Birth of a Nation. It was about how the post-Civil War American South had been saved from rapacious carpetbaggers and marauding former slaves by the Ku Klux Klan.
It was the first nationwide sensation in the history of moving pictures and it made something new of its actors – Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish and Henry B. Walthall – something that would soon come to be called “stars.”
It conquered a new frontier of filmed storytelling, a frontier comprised of rhythmic editing; the calculated alteration of camera positions, from the intimate close-up to the panoramic battle sequence; visual compositions in depth and the manipulation of primal emotional response.
This movie juxtaposed the historical with the personal, letting a story of lovers torn apart by war unfold against a backdrop that included dramatic recreations of real events, such as General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Said actor Walter Huston years after first seeing it, “It made the blood tingle.”
The Birth of a Nation created an appetite for cinematic spectacle that still enthralls us.
In the wake of its success, which alerted people like the young mogul-to-be Louis B. Mayer to the potential of producing features like Birth on an assembly line, the nickelodeon era was over and the day of the movies as a mass attraction was established.
President Wilson joined millions of Americans in being impressed. After emerging from the sweeping, three-hour epic (based on two novels by the bestselling white supremacist Thomas Dixon), the president offered what may rank as the first blockbuster blurb: “This is history written with lightning,” he is alleged to have said.
To the extent that it scorched wherever it struck, Griffith’s pioneering long-form feature (previously, the longest American movie, also from Griffith, had run four reels, or 40 minutes) was like American history disgorged by a flamethrower.
The story of two families, one Northern and one Southern, whose fates would be fused together then ripped apart by the Civil War and its aftermath, Griffith’s silent movie was the most significant event in American popular culture of its day.
This film consolidated just about every narrative and stylistic development in the barely two-decade-old medium into a powerful and propulsive experience.
It also single-handedly redefined the business and established movies as the century’s most influential form of mass communication. All we know of movie culture today began with The Birth of a Nation.
But Wilson’s legendary assessment was also a masterstroke of political doublespeak, because lightning can dazzle but also destroy.
Almost immediately after Birth began a commercial run that would continue in one fashion or another into the early years of the sound era – the most popular silent film ever made, it eventually reaped an astounding $60 million (in pre-Depression U.S. dollars) on a $110,000 investment – Griffith’s vision of the South ravaged by Reconstruction generated a massive backlash.
Led primarily by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the anti-Birth movement decried the film’s sensational depiction of freed black slaves as lazy, lecherous, ignorant and vindictive.
In one sequence, the virtuous “Little Sister” (Mae Marsh) of the once-genteel, Southern aristocratic Cameron family is driven to suicide by a lust-crazed black soldier (a white actor in blackface). Another features the spectacle of a state assembly dominated by blacks guzzling booze, gnawing fried chicken and plopping dirty bare feet onto desks (images Griffith drew from racist editorial cartoons of the Reconstruction period).
Not surprisingly, the NAACP and its supporters sought to block the film’s release.
As aesthetically and technically groundbreaking as it was, The Birth of a Nation is virulent and unequivocal in its depiction of the former Confederacy (for which Griffith’s father fought as a colonel) as a fallen Eden beset by black devils and sneering Yankee exploiters.
In the movie’s climactic moment – which must have had audiences cheering, crying and howling – the humiliated Cameron patriarch holds a pistol over his only living daughter’s head as black soldiers attempt to pound their way into the cabin where a small group of white people have barricaded themselves against the dark hordes.
This man is ready to sacrifice his own child if the brutes get in, but then a sound is heard – or, to be precise, is suggested by Griffith’s evocative editing. It’s horses. It’s a rescue. It’s the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan. In the nick of time.
For the rest of his life, Griffith claimed not to understand what upset so many people about the movie. As far as he was concerned, he was simply chronicling his personal experience listening to his parents describe the deprivations that had befallen his childhood home of Kentucky during Reconstruction.
In 1930, at the time he was making his penultimate movie – a historical biopic of Lincoln – the 55-year-old Griffith filmed an interview defending The Birth of a Nation. Clearly well-rehearsed, conducted over cigarettes by Abraham Lincoln star Walter Huston in a plush sitting room, the interview ran prior to the film in a fresh commercial release.
In this interview, Griffith – who had not had a successful film in nearly a decade – defends the movie’s heroic portrayal of the KKK.
Wistfully, he claims the Klan had “a purpose” in those days, that it “saved the South.”
The great contradiction of Birth, between the monumental nature of its expressive achievement and the reprehensible message it expressed, has always tempered its historical status.
Over the years, many have attempted to either defend Griffith or mitigate his prejudice by insisting he be granted consideration in context – that is, as a 19th-century sentimentalist and southerner for whom the post-Civil War south really seemed a ravaged place saved by the KKK. But it’s simply impossible today to watch the film and not be appalled.
In his Griffith entry in the most recent edition of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson calls the movie’s racial politics “embarrassing.”
In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan, which had originally formed as a secret society dedicated to exacting vigilante justice against what it saw as the enemies of the defeated South, was a moribund, depleted and antiquated organization. That changed with the movie’s release. In Georgia alone that year, KKK ranks ballooned to 8 million, and 22 Klan-related lynchings took place. This is historical fact. But it is also something else: The birth of history as something shaped by the movies.
While Griffith’s film proved an effective recruitment campaign for a reborn Klan in throughout the 1920s, the popular image of the organization itself tarnished immediately. It would seem that the backlash, combined with the growing civil rights consciousness of the 20th century, prevailed.
Few, if any, heroic portrayals of the hooded, white vigilantes followed. If anything, the image that stuck was one of irredeemable ugliness. The Klan became the symbol of white Southern race hatred, and the figure of the hooded Klansman was invariably associated with burning crosses, redneck ignorance and gruesome lynchings.
By 1939, the year that Gone With the Wind was released, the most popular and eagerly anticipated American movie since The Birth of a Nation conspicuously omitted the KKK subplot in Edna Ferber’s original novel.
Birth of a Nation’s “history written with lightning” struck the KKK only once. The fire burned bright but left only ashes.
Sources: The Film Encyclopedia, by Ephraim Katz.; Griffith Masterworks, Kino on Video (DVD); The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, by David Thomson; The Silent Cinema, by Liam O’Leary; The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, by David Thomson.

gpevere@thestar.ca <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
=======================================================
2. Not sent–draft
Geoff Pevere is a writer from whom I expect better than we received in his piece on D. W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION which is replete with errors, not the least of which is ascribing to Edna Ferber the authorship of Margaret Mitchell’s novel GONE WITH THE WIND.
We are also told that Griffith had not made a sucessful film in nearly the decade from 1920 to 1930. That era includes both WAY DOWN EAST (1920) and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (1922) which were huge popular hits and a number of other pictures that not only did respectably at the box office but also still hold up today, one of which is SALLY OF THE SAWDUST (1925) with Carol Dempster and W. C. Fields which Griffith produced for Paramount, bought back when they wanted to tamper with it and released to resounding success through United Artists.
We are told that Woodrow Wilson is alleged to have said, “This is history written with lightning.” The implication is that he might not have. Left out is that Wilson was an historian of that period and ably qualified to speak. Lenin described THE BIRTH OF A NATION as “An express train among pushcarts.” But then the Russians were not deflected by skin color. They saw the film for what it truly is, a depiction of class struggle. Had the revolution failed they would all have been hung as outlaws instead of remembered as heroes.
I had great difficulty presenting this film until I read Seymour Stern’s excellent in-depth study of the picture in FILM CULTURE magazine. Not only did Stern traces the creation of the picture he also traced the roots of the slave trade, established that the South knew slavery could not continue and that the impetus to end it faster than the south could handle came from an industrialized north looking to create wage earners who could spend money on the products they were creating. Stern also established that the money to industrialize the North came from the sale of slaves to the South.
Pevere writes, “In his Griffith entry in the most recent edition of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson calls the movie’s racial politics ‘embarrassing.’” What is embarassing about them? No one who takes the time to investigate the issue would find them so. Contemporary film writing is all too often sophomoric at best.
Scott Simon in THE FILMS OF D. W. Griffith, writes, “As anyone who sits with an audience through the film in the 1990s recognizes, its return as formalist masterpiece or even as visceral adventure is possible only in the imagination.”
Not when I screen it.
In 1980 I brought Bernard B. Brown to Toronto for three days. Among Mr. Brown’s accomplishments, which included directing the recording of the sound on THE JAZZ SINGER (1927), introducing multi-track recording, ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL (1939), receiving eleven Academy Award nominations for film and film sound as well as two Oscars, being head of sound at Warner Brothers and then at Universal until he retired, teaching film and film sound at UCLA and playiung tennis with Charlie Chaplin, among Mr. Brown’s considerable accomplishments was the fact that he played first violin in the orchestra at Clune’s Auditorium ion Los Angles from the premiere of THE BIRTH OF A NATION (as THE CLANSMAN) through 365 performances.
With Mr. Brown as my mentor (by the way as far as popular success goes, I had only three people come out over the three days Mr. Brown was in this city. The event was a huge popular failure) with Mr. Brown as my mentor I studied in depth film and film sound at a level no one else in the world ever has.
Shortly after I was invited to screen the film for 500 grade thirteen students. Their teachers told me not to be disturbed by their reactions to the film as they would talk and laugh throughout the picture (doing that at all the films they were shown). “Not today,” I said.
Three hours later those young people were applauding and cheering. They had said not a word to each other during the length of the film. “I don’t understand,” said their teachers, “they have never done that before.”
I was also invited to present the film, with my score, for The Toronto Film Society. Barry Hayne. a University of Toronto Film Studies teacher, was head of the Silent Series. I arrived to find out the projector they gave me ran faster and the tape recorder slower. There was no way to synchronize the film and taped score.
On reflection I realized I could run parts of the film in silence and use the monitor speaker in the projection booth to synch up the score. I sweat blood. The screening was at the Ontario Institute for Studies auditorium which seats hundreds. At the end of the film this modern day audience was reacting as wildly as audiences had when the picture first exploded across screen. Barry Hayne came charging into the both shourting, “REG! THAT SCORE IS BRILLIANT! I ESPECIALLY ADMIRED YOUR INSPIRED USE OF SILENCE!”
The brilliance was Griffith’s. I was just following his cues.
A few days ago Martin Knelman wrote singing the praies of Garth H. Drabinsky, a man whose chief claim to fame is that he took the movies back to the shoebox cinemas David Wark Griffith lifted thenm out of with this film.
At the time Drabinsky’s CINEPLEX first opened I spoke for the first time with Miss Lillian Gish, the star of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. “Theatres have shrunk,” she told me. I thought of Garth’s 25, 50 and 100 seat cinemas and said, “Yes.” “My last film, Robert Altman’s THE WEDDING, opened in a 500 seat theatre,” she said. “That is a big theatre,” I thought to myself wopndering what she was complaining about. Then she said, “My pictures opened in 5,000 seat cinemas.”
Yes and that began with THE BIRTH OF A NATION. While Geoff does mention that THE BIRTH OF A NATION eventually reaped an astounding $60 million (in pre-Depression U.S. dollars) on a $110,000 investment and that people across the country were lining up to pay the unprecedented sum of $2 a head to see the film he does not explain that $20 in 1915 amounts to $200 a seat today. No other film maker, excepting one, has taken his risk nor surpassed his success.
That one other was Metro Studio head Richard Rowland who produced, against the advice of his board of directors, the Rex Ingram, June Mathis Rudolph Valentino film, THE FOUR HOPRSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (1920), the only film to surpass THE BIRTH OF A NATION in box office success in the silent period.
When I brought in a 16mm print, obtained from Charles Vesce in New York, one of the longest establkished and most reputable suppliers of great films in America, I heavily researched the music for the film which not only estyablished Valentino as a star (the first great star) but also introduced to the world the Argentine Tango.
Ed Jull, of the Toronto Film Society, told me the TFS had screened the film long ago and that musicians in the audience had claimed the music for the film was not “on the beat.”
I inited your film writers to see the presentation. They did not come. One person who did come was John Roberts P.C., our Minister of Culture under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Another was an old Argentine couple. “The music! The music!” said the woman. “You had that score on the beat all the way,” said her husband who added, “We are going to send Argentine people here.”
THE BIRTH OF A NATION remains the single greatest work in the history of world cinema. It established forever the art and the business of motion pictures. It presents the only honest and accurate picture of the American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction from the point oif view of the American White South. We are not asked to agree with that moment. Certainly, we should not. But to color that moment with the popular prejudsices of our own time is a far greater sin.
As well, THE BIRTH OF A NATION is the only motion picture that allows us to see and understand the depth of the wound at the heart of the American soul.
========================================================================
3.Your piece on THE BIRTH is replete with errors not the least of which is crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND.
Lenin described THE BIRTH as “an express train among pushcarts.” But then, the Russians were not distracted by the color issue and saw the struggle in the film for what it really is.–Reg
========================================================================
4. Thanks for keeping my posted on my mistakes. Apart from the Edna Ferber fuckup — my dumb fault entirely — how else was I remiss?
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Geoff Pevere
Sent: 1/9/2005 11:56 AM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Your piece on THE BIRTH is replete with errors not the least of which is
crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE
WIND.

Lenin described THE BIRTH as “an express train among pushcarts.” But
then, the Russians were not distracted by the color issue and saw the
struggle in the film for what it really is.–Reg
=========================================================================
5.Plenty. I run the risk of looking hysterical by listing them.–Reg
.
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ <mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 10:33 AM
Subject: RE: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Thanks for keeping my posted on my mistakes. Apart from the Edna Ferber fuckup — my dumb fault entirely — how else was I remiss?
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Geoff Pevere
Sent: 1/9/2005 11:56 AM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Your piece on THE BIRTH is replete with errors not the least of which is
crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE
WIND.

Lenin described THE BIRTH as “an express train among pushcarts.” But
then, the Russians were not distracted by the color issue and saw the
struggle in the film for what it really is.–Reg
=====================================================
6. You? Hysterical? Perish the thought.
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Pevere, Geoff
Sent: 1/9/2005 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Plenty. I run the risk of looking hysterical by listing them.–Reg

.
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ <<mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 10:33 AM
Subject: RE: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Thanks for keeping my posted on my mistakes. Apart from the Edna Ferber
fuckup — my dumb fault entirely — how else was I remiss?
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Geoff Pevere
Sent: 1/9/2005 11:56 AM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Your piece on THE BIRTH is replete with errors not the least of which is
crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE
WIND.

Lenin described THE BIRTH as “an express train among pushcarts.” But
then, the Russians were not distracted by the color issue and saw the
struggle in the film for what it really is.–Reg
====================================================
7.And then you called her a liar! Just kidding.
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Pevere, Geoff
Sent: 1/9/2005 6:44 PM
Subject: Re: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
One of my favourite moments showing THE BIRTH OF A NATION was when I was
introducing it at Innis College as part of my series there. A number of
people called me a liar. Jane Jacobs was in the audience. She got up and
said, “He is telling you the truth.”
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ <<mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 11:45 AM
Subject: RE: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
You? Hysterical? Perish the thought.
—–Original Message—– —–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Pevere, Geoff
Sent: 1/9/2005 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Plenty. I run the risk of looking hysterical by listing them.–Reg

.
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff < <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
<<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>> >
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ < <mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>
<<mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>> >
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 10:33 AM
Subject: RE: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Thanks for keeping my posted on my mistakes. Apart from the Edna Ferber
fuckup — my dumb fault entirely — how else was I remiss?
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Geoff Pevere
Sent: 1/9/2005 11:56 AM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Your piece on THE BIRTH is replete with errors not the least of which is
crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE
WIND.

Lenin described THE BIRTH as “an express train among pushcarts.” But
then, the Russians were not distracted by the color issue and saw the
struggle in the film for what it really is.–Reg
=============================================================
8. Reg,
What a pal. Thanks.
Geoff

—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: lettertoed thestar
Cc: T. Casey Brennan; Simon Waegemaekers; Sharif Khan; rob salem; richard ouzounian; Robert Fulford; michael valpy; Murray Glass; liz braun; john tutt; john bentley mays; jim slotek; julian grant; John Ferri; JBeck6540@aol.com; jadams@globeandmail.ca; hanna fisher; martin goodman; Gino Empry; George Anthony; editor@boxmagazine.com; Ryan Burt; bruce macdonald; al aronowitz; Roger Ebert; Geoff Pevere; ed jull
Sent: 1/10/2005 1:40 PM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Geoff Pevere is a writer I enjoy reading. His piece on THE BIRTH OF A
NATION in Saturday’s STAR was so full of errors however that I am forced
to speak.

While it is true that THE BIRTH OF A NATION was the first film to be
shown at The White House this was not because then President Woodrow
Wilson was curious to see the film. He had been asked by The Reverend
Thomas Dixon, whose book THE CLANSMAN the film was adapted from, to
look at the picture. Wilson was in mourning for his first wife and did
not want to be seen in public. For that reason and that reason alone the
film was taken to the White House.

It began showing in Los Angeles on February 8 under the title THE
CLANSMAN (this title was used throughout the film’s Los Angeles run).
Wilson knew nothing of the film until he was contacted by Dixon. He
agreed to see the film because long before at a moment he needed a hand
Dixon’s was the one that reached out.

The White House screening took place on February 18, 1915. The film did
not open to the public in New York until March 3, 1915.

After seeing the film it is reliably reported Wilson, an American
historian and highly qualified to pass judgement, said, “It is like
history written with Lightning. My only regret is that it is all so
terribly true.” Later, when the feces hit the fan Wilson, ever a
politician, retracted the remark. J. P. Tulmuty, Wilson’s chief public
relations adviser, wrote, “The President was entirely unaware of the
character of the play before it was presented, and has at no time
expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a
courtesy extended to an old friend.”

In doing research on this film and the rest of Griffith’s work I
obtained copies of the autobiographies of D. W. Griffith, cameramen
Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown, and actressess Miriam Cooper and Lillian
Gish as well as an extensive list of books devoted to Mr. Griffith, the
best of which is Richard Shickel’s . The best exploration of the film
remains Seymour Stern’s for FILM CULTURE in 1965.

Geoff tells us that in the decade between 1920 and 1930 Griffith had no
commercial successes. The reverse is true. He had huge hits with WAY
DOWN EAST and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (the two pictures he self-produced).
The films he made for both Paramount Pictures and United Artists did
respectable business. I was surprised to discover, reading Shickel’s
book that Griffith withdrew from film making not because his pictures
were not popular but because he got tired of producers mucking them up.
This continues to frustrate serious film artists. Animation director
Chuck Jones told me the most common thing he heard from producers was,
spoken as one word, “That’snewtakeitout.”

THE BIRTH was not the most popular film of the silent era. Rex Ingram’s
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE holds that honour. I built up a
score for that film from the Argentine Tango. Ed Jull, of the Toronto
Film Society, told me when the TFS screened the film years before
musicians in the audience complained the soundtrack was not “on the
beat.” At a screening of THE FOUR HORSEMEN one man said to me, “You had
that score on the beat all the way through. I am going to send Argentine
people here.”

Geoff winds up crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s
GONE WITH THE WIND. Mitchell described THE BIRTH as “the only honest
film about the American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction.”
Its honesty lies in showing that period from the point of view of the
White South. The wounds from that time have still not healed. THE BIRTH
OF A NATION, more clearly than any other film, shows why they exist.

THE STAR has not always been so unkind to Griffith and his film. Urjo
Kareda, one of the most astute critics the paper enjoyed, wrote “D. W
Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION is not only the oldest film in town but
quite the best as well.”

There is so much misinformation (and deliberate slander) about Griffith
and his work that it pains me to see Geoff write so sloppily about what
is, after all, the most important film ever made.

One writer, Scott Simon, in his THE FILMS OF D. W. GRIFFITH, writes that
whatever power the picture had to move an audience it does not have that
power today.

Well, it all depends on how it is presented.

It is not generally known that however great the advances were that
Griffith made in film technique with this film (and they are
considerable) the true power of the film rose from the special music
score Griffith had created for the picture. In 1980 I brought to Toronto
Bernard B. Brown who played first violin in the orchestra which
accompanied the film throughout its Los Angeles run. In 1927 Mr. Brown
directed the sound recording on THE JAZZ SINGER. He got eleven Academy
Awards and two Oscars for his work with film and film sound which he
taught at UCLA when he retired from the film industry. After consulting
with him I built a score for the film. When I screened the picture to
The Toronto Film Society a few years back the audience went wild.
University of Toronto Film Prof Barry Hayne came charging up to me
shouting, “That score is brilliant!” The brilliance was Griffith’s.

I have also presented the film to hundreds of high school students whose
teachers were astonished to see them so caught up in the picture’s
power. The kids were more astute than the adults. They were amazed to
find out how vulnerable we all are to mass media manipulation (which is
why I continue to show the film).

David Wark Griffith singlehandedly lifted motion pictures up from shoe
box theatres and transformed the medium into the art form of our time.
Garth Drabinsky, whom Martin Knelman praises regularly, singlehandedly
took it back to the shoeboxes. That $2 a seat audiences paidd to see
this film would be $200 a seat today.

Griffith deserves better, way better, than the sophmoric and hysterical
piece Geoff delivered up. Lillian Gish informed me that Griffith had no
idea his film would lead to the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan and
personally felt that no matter what it had achived it was not worth the
price of a single lynching. It must have been a source of great horror
and pain to see such diabolical fruit fall from his work.

As Richard Shickel writes, “We have new ways of seeing and and thinking
and perhaps even being which literally did not exist until [Griffith]
began his work. And began that chain of artistic invention which has
enabled us to see the world through fresh eyes, in a new light.”

I will be presenting THE BIRTH OF A NATION again in a few weeks to mark
the 90th anniversary of the picture. Come. See. Learn. Perhaps together
we can get the movies out of the shoe boxes Drabinsky stuffed them into.
And perhaps Geoff can get “on the beat.”–Reg Hartt (416-603-6643)
=====================================================
9.If the best friend I ever had wrote misinformation about you I would take him/her to task for it. Most especially so if you were not able to do it for yourself. –Reg
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ <mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 11:51 AM
Subject: RE: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Reg,
What a pal. Thanks.
Geoff

—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: lettertoed thestar
Cc: T. Casey Brennan; Simon Waegemaekers; Sharif Khan; rob salem; richard ouzounian; Robert Fulford; michael valpy; Murray Glass; liz braun; john tutt; john bentley mays; jim slotek; julian grant; John Ferri; JBeck6540@aol.com <mailto:JBeck6540@aol.com>; jadams@globeandmail.ca; hanna fisher; martin goodman; Gino Empry; George Anthony; editor@boxmagazine.com; Ryan Burt; bruce macdonald; al aronowitz; Roger Ebert; Geoff Pevere; ed jull
Sent: 1/10/2005 1:40 PM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Geoff Pevere is a writer I enjoy reading. His piece on THE BIRTH OF A
NATION in Saturday’s STAR was so full of errors however that I am forced
to speak.

While it is true that THE BIRTH OF A NATION was the first film to be
shown at The White House this was not because then President Woodrow
Wilson was curious to see the film. He had been asked by The Reverend
Thomas Dixon, whose book THE CLANSMAN the film was adapted from, to
look at the picture. Wilson was in mourning for his first wife and did
not want to be seen in public. For that reason and that reason alone the
film was taken to the White House.

It began showing in Los Angeles on February 8 under the title THE
CLANSMAN (this title was used throughout the film’s Los Angeles run).
Wilson knew nothing of the film until he was contacted by Dixon. He
agreed to see the film because long before at a moment he needed a hand
Dixon’s was the one that reached out.

The White House screening took place on February 18, 1915. The film did
not open to the public in New York until March 3, 1915.

After seeing the film it is reliably reported Wilson, an American
historian and highly qualified to pass judgement, said, “It is like
history written with Lightning. My only regret is that it is all so
terribly true.” Later, when the feces hit the fan Wilson, ever a
politician, retracted the remark. J. P. Tulmuty, Wilson’s chief public
relations adviser, wrote, “The President was entirely unaware of the
character of the play before it was presented, and has at no time
expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a
courtesy extended to an old friend.”

In doing research on this film and the rest of Griffith’s work I
obtained copies of the autobiographies of D. W. Griffith, cameramen
Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown, and actressess Miriam Cooper and Lillian
Gish as well as an extensive list of books devoted to Mr. Griffith, the
best of which is Richard Shickel’s . The best exploration of the film
remains Seymour Stern’s for FILM CULTURE in 1965.

Geoff tells us that in the decade between 1920 and 1930 Griffith had no
commercial successes. The reverse is true. He had huge hits with WAY
DOWN EAST and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (the two pictures he self-produced).
The films he made for both Paramount Pictures and United Artists did
respectable business. I was surprised to discover, reading Shickel’s
book that Griffith withdrew from film making not because his pictures
were not popular but because he got tired of producers mucking them up.
This continues to frustrate serious film artists. Animation director
Chuck Jones told me the most common thing he heard from producers was,
spoken as one word, “That’snewtakeitout.”

THE BIRTH was not the most popular film of the silent era. Rex Ingram’s
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE holds that honour. I built up a
score for that film from the Argentine Tango. Ed Jull, of the Toronto
Film Society, told me when the TFS screened the film years before
musicians in the audience complained the soundtrack was not “on the
beat.” At a screening of THE FOUR HORSEMEN one man said to me, “You had
that score on the beat all the way through. I am going to send Argentine
people here.”

Geoff winds up crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s
GONE WITH THE WIND. Mitchell described THE BIRTH as “the only honest
film about the American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction.”
Its honesty lies in showing that period from the point of view of the
White South. The wounds from that time have still not healed. THE BIRTH
OF A NATION, more clearly than any other film, shows why they exist.

THE STAR has not always been so unkind to Griffith and his film. Urjo
Kareda, one of the most astute critics the paper enjoyed, wrote “D. W
Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION is not only the oldest film in town but
quite the best as well.”

There is so much misinformation (and deliberate slander) about Griffith
and his work that it pains me to see Geoff write so sloppily about what
is, after all, the most important film ever made.

One writer, Scott Simon, in his THE FILMS OF D. W. GRIFFITH, writes that
whatever power the picture had to move an audience it does not have that
power today.

Well, it all depends on how it is presented.

It is not generally known that however great the advances were that
Griffith made in film technique with this film (and they are
considerable) the true power of the film rose from the special music
score Griffith had created for the picture. In 1980 I brought to Toronto
Bernard B. Brown who played first violin in the orchestra which
accompanied the film throughout its Los Angeles run. In 1927 Mr. Brown
directed the sound recording on THE JAZZ SINGER. He got eleven Academy
Awards and two Oscars for his work with film and film sound which he
taught at UCLA when he retired from the film industry. After consulting
with him I built a score for the film. When I screened the picture to
The Toronto Film Society a few years back the audience went wild.
University of Toronto Film Prof Barry Hayne came charging up to me
shouting, “That score is brilliant!” The brilliance was Griffith’s.

I have also presented the film to hundreds of high school students whose
teachers were astonished to see them so caught up in the picture’s
power. The kids were more astute than the adults. They were amazed to
find out how vulnerable we all are to mass media manipulation (which is
why I continue to show the film).

David Wark Griffith singlehandedly lifted motion pictures up from shoe
box theatres and transformed the medium into the art form of our time.
Garth Drabinsky, whom Martin Knelman praises regularly, singlehandedly
took it back to the shoeboxes. That $2 a seat audiences paidd to see
this film would be $200 a seat today.

Griffith deserves better, way better, than the sophmoric and hysterical
piece Geoff delivered up. Lillian Gish informed me that Griffith had no
idea his film would lead to the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan and
personally felt that no matter what it had achived it was not worth the
price of a single lynching. It must have been a source of great horror
and pain to see such diabolical fruit fall from his work.

As Richard Shickel writes, “We have new ways of seeing and and thinking
and perhaps even being which literally did not exist until [Griffith]
began his work. And began that chain of artistic invention which has
enabled us to see the world through fresh eyes, in a new light.”

I will be presenting THE BIRTH OF A NATION again in a few weeks to mark
the 90th anniversary of the picture. Come. See. Learn. Perhaps together
we can get the movies out of the shoe boxes Drabinsky stuffed them into.
And perhaps Geoff can get “on the beat.”–Reg Hartt (416-603-6643)
=========================================================
10.Yeah, you’re a prince.
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Pevere, Geoff
Sent: 1/10/2005 3:04 PM
Subject: Re: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
If the best friend I ever had wrote misinformation about you I would
take him/her to task for it. Most especially so if you were not able to
do it for yourself. –Reg
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ <<mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 11:51 AM
Subject: RE: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Reg,
What a pal. Thanks.
Geoff

—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: lettertoed thestar
Cc: T. Casey Brennan; Simon Waegemaekers; Sharif Khan; rob salem;
richard ouzounian; Robert Fulford; michael valpy; Murray Glass; liz
braun; john tutt; john bentley mays; jim slotek; julian grant; John
Ferri; JBeck6540@aol.com <<mailto:JBeck6540@aol.com>> ;
jadams@globeandmail.ca; hanna fisher; martin goodman; Gino Empry; George
Anthony; editor@boxmagazine.com; Ryan Burt; bruce macdonald; al
aronowitz; Roger Ebert; Geoff Pevere; ed jull
Sent: 1/10/2005 1:40 PM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Geoff Pevere is a writer I enjoy reading. His piece on THE BIRTH OF A
NATION in Saturday’s STAR was so full of errors however that I am forced
to speak.

While it is true that THE BIRTH OF A NATION was the first film to be
shown at The White House this was not because then President Woodrow
Wilson was curious to see the film. He had been asked by The Reverend
Thomas Dixon, whose book THE CLANSMAN the film was adapted from, to
look at the picture. Wilson was in mourning for his first wife and did
not want to be seen in public. For that reason and that reason alone the
film was taken to the White House.

It began showing in Los Angeles on February 8 under the title THE
CLANSMAN (this title was used throughout the film’s Los Angeles run).
Wilson knew nothing of the film until he was contacted by Dixon. He
agreed to see the film because long before at a moment he needed a hand
Dixon’s was the one that reached out.

The White House screening took place on February 18, 1915. The film did
not open to the public in New York until March 3, 1915.

After seeing the film it is reliably reported Wilson, an American
historian and highly qualified to pass judgement, said, “It is like
history written with Lightning. My only regret is that it is all so
terribly true.” Later, when the feces hit the fan Wilson, ever a
politician, retracted the remark. J. P. Tulmuty, Wilson’s chief public
relations adviser, wrote, “The President was entirely unaware of the
character of the play before it was presented, and has at no time
expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a
courtesy extended to an old friend.”

In doing research on this film and the rest of Griffith’s work I
obtained copies of the autobiographies of D. W. Griffith, cameramen
Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown, and actressess Miriam Cooper and Lillian
Gish as well as an extensive list of books devoted to Mr. Griffith, the
best of which is Richard Shickel’s . The best exploration of the film
remains Seymour Stern’s for FILM CULTURE in 1965.

Geoff tells us that in the decade between 1920 and 1930 Griffith had no
commercial successes. The reverse is true. He had huge hits with WAY
DOWN EAST and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (the two pictures he self-produced).
The films he made for both Paramount Pictures and United Artists did
respectable business. I was surprised to discover, reading Shickel’s
book that Griffith withdrew from film making not because his pictures
were not popular but because he got tired of producers mucking them up.
This continues to frustrate serious film artists. Animation director
Chuck Jones told me the most common thing he heard from producers was,
spoken as one word, “That’snewtakeitout.”

THE BIRTH was not the most popular film of the silent era. Rex Ingram’s
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE holds that honour. I built up a
score for that film from the Argentine Tango. Ed Jull, of the Toronto
Film Society, told me when the TFS screened the film years before
musicians in the audience complained the soundtrack was not “on the
beat.” At a screening of THE FOUR HORSEMEN one man said to me, “You had
that score on the beat all the way through. I am going to send Argentine
people here.”

Geoff winds up crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s
GONE WITH THE WIND. Mitchell described THE BIRTH as “the only honest
film about the American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction.”
Its honesty lies in showing that period from the point of view of the
White South. The wounds from that time have still not healed. THE BIRTH
OF A NATION, more clearly than any other film, shows why they exist.

THE STAR has not always been so unkind to Griffith and his film. Urjo
Kareda, one of the most astute critics the paper enjoyed, wrote “D. W
Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION is not only the oldest film in town but
quite the best as well.”

There is so much misinformation (and deliberate slander) about Griffith
and his work that it pains me to see Geoff write so sloppily about what
is, after all, the most important film ever made.

One writer, Scott Simon, in his THE FILMS OF D. W. GRIFFITH, writes that
whatever power the picture had to move an audience it does not have that
power today.

Well, it all depends on how it is presented.

It is not generally known that however great the advances were that
Griffith made in film technique with this film (and they are
considerable) the true power of the film rose from the special music
score Griffith had created for the picture. In 1980 I brought to Toronto
Bernard B. Brown who played first violin in the orchestra which
accompanied the film throughout its Los Angeles run. In 1927 Mr. Brown
directed the sound recording on THE JAZZ SINGER. He got eleven Academy
Awards and two Oscars for his work with film and film sound which he
taught at UCLA when he retired from the film industry. After consulting
with him I built a score for the film. When I screened the picture to
The Toronto Film Society a few years back the audience went wild.
University of Toronto Film Prof Barry Hayne came charging up to me
shouting, “That score is brilliant!” The brilliance was Griffith’s.

I have also presented the film to hundreds of high school students whose
teachers were astonished to see them so caught up in the picture’s
power. The kids were more astute than the adults. They were amazed to
find out how vulnerable we all are to mass media manipulation (which is
why I continue to show the film).

David Wark Griffith singlehandedly lifted motion pictures up from shoe
box theatres and transformed the medium into the art form of our time.
Garth Drabinsky, whom Martin Knelman praises regularly, singlehandedly
took it back to the shoeboxes. That $2 a seat audiences paidd to see
this film would be $200 a seat today.

Griffith deserves better, way better, than the sophmoric and hysterical
piece Geoff delivered up. Lillian Gish informed me that Griffith had no
idea his film would lead to the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan and
personally felt that no matter what it had achived it was not worth the
price of a single lynching. It must have been a source of great horror
and pain to see such diabolical fruit fall from his work.

As Richard Shickel writes, “We have new ways of seeing and and thinking
and perhaps even being which literally did not exist until [Griffith]
began his work. And began that chain of artistic invention which has
enabled us to see the world through fresh eyes, in a new light.”

I will be presenting THE BIRTH OF A NATION again in a few weeks to mark
the 90th anniversary of the picture. Come. See. Learn. Perhaps together
we can get the movies out of the shoe boxes Drabinsky stuffed them into.
And perhaps Geoff can get “on the beat.”–Reg Hartt (416-603-6643)
=======================================================
11. Dear Mr. Hartt:
I don’t know why you sent this particular article to me, but you might be interested in an anecdote of my own.
Several years ago, I was teaching a course on Griffith at Columbia College in L.A.. As any course on Griffith must, I included a showing of BIRTH OF A NATION. I happen to have a beautiful, complete version with an excellent orchestral score.
The class included a couple of b;lack students. After the showing, one of them came up to me and said, “Mr. Glass, I hated some of the basic stories in the film, but I couldn’t help rooting for the Klan as they were riding to the rescue of the beseiged people in the cabin!”
Murray Glass
————– Original message from “Reg Hartt” <rhartt4363@rogers.com>: ————–

Geoff Pevere is a writer I enjoy reading. His piece on THE BIRTH OF A NATION in Saturday’s STAR was so full of errors however that I am forced to speak.
While it is true that THE BIRTH OF A NATION was the first film to be shown at The White House this was not because then President Woodrow Wilson was curious to see the film. He had been asked by The Reverend Thomas Dixon, whose book THE CLANSMAN the film was adapted from, to look at the picture. Wilson was in mourning for his first wife and did not want to be seen in public. For that reason and that reason alone the film was taken to the White House.
It began showing in Los Angeles on February 8 under the title THE CLANSMAN (this title was used throughout the film’s Los Angeles run). Wilson knew nothing of the film until he was contacted by Dixon. He agreed to see the film because long before at a moment he needed a hand Dixon’s was the one that reached out.
The White House screening took place on February 18, 1915. The film did not open to the public in New York until March 3, 1915.
After seeing the film it is reliably reported Wilson, an American historian and highly qualified to pass judgement, said, “It is like history written with Lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” Later, when the feces hit the fan Wilson, ever a politician, retracted the remark. J. P. Tulmuty, Wilson’s chief public relations adviser, wrote, “The President was entirely unaware of the character of the play before it was presented, and has at no time expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old friend.”
In doing research on this film and the rest of Griffith’s work I obtained copies of the autobiographies of D. W. Griffith, cameramen Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown, and actressess Miriam Cooper and Lillian Gish as well as an extensive list of books devoted to Mr. Griffith, the best of which is Richard Shickel’s . The best exploration of the film remains Seymour Stern’s for FILM CULTURE in 1965.
Geoff tells us that in the decade between 1920 and 1930 Griffith had no commercial successes. The reverse is true. He had huge hits with WAY DOWN EAST and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (the two pictures he self-produced). The films he made for both Paramount Pictures and United Artists did respectable business. I was surprised to discover, reading Shickel’s book that Griffith withdrew from film making not because his pictures were not popular but because he got tired of producers mucking them up. This continues to frustrate serious film artists. Animation director Chuck Jones told me the most common thing he heard from producers was, spoken as one word, “That’snewtakeitout.”
THE BIRTH was not the most popular film of the silent era. Rex Ingram’s THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE holds that honour. I built up a score for that film from the Argentine Tango. Ed Jull, of the Toronto Film Society, told me when the TFS screened the film years before musicians in the audience complained the soundtrack was not “on the beat.” At a screening of THE FOUR HORSEMEN one man said to me, “You had that score on the beat all the way through. I am going to send Argentine people here.”
Geoff winds up crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND. Mitchell described THE BIRTH as “the only honest film about the American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction.” Its honesty lies in showing that period from the point of view of the White South. The wounds from that time have still not healed. THE BIRTH OF A NATION, more clearly than any other film, shows why they exist.
THE STAR has not always been so unkind to Griffith and his film. Urjo Kareda, one of the most astute critics the paper enjoyed, wrote “D. W Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION is not only the oldest film in town but quite the best as well.”
There is so much misinformation (and deliberate slander) about Griffith and his work that it pains me to see Geoff write so sloppily about what is, after all, the most important film ever made.
One writer, Scott Simon, in his THE FILMS OF D. W. GRIFFITH, writes that whatever power the picture had to move an audience it does not have that power today.
Well, it all depends on how it is presented.
It is not generally known that however great the advances were that Griffith made in film technique with this film (and they are considerable) the true power of the film rose from the special music score Griffith had created for the picture. In 1980 I brought to Toronto Bernard B. Brown who played first violin in the orchestra which accompanied the film throughout its Los Angeles run. In 1927 Mr. Brown directed the sound recording on THE JAZZ SINGER. He got eleven Academy Awards and two Oscars for his work with film and film sound which he taught at UCLA when he retired from the film industry. After consulting with him I built a score for the film. When I screened the picture to The Toronto Film Society a few years back the audience went wild. University of Toronto Film Prof Barry Hayne came charging up to me shouting, “That score is brilliant!” The brilliance was Griffith’s.
I have also presented the film to hundreds of high school students whose teachers were astonished to see them so caught up in the picture’s power. The kids were more astute than the adults. They were amazed to find out how vulnerable we all are to mass media manipulation (which is why I continue to show the film).
David Wark Griffith singlehandedly lifted motion pictures up from shoe box theatres and transformed the medium into the art form of our time. Garth Drabinsky, whom Martin Knelman praises regularly, singlehandedly took it back to the shoeboxes. That $2 a seat audiences paidd to see this film would be $200 a seat today.
Griffith deserves better, way better, than the sophmoric and hysterical piece Geoff delivered up. Lillian Gish informed me that Griffith had no idea his film would lead to the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan and personally felt that no matter what it had achived it was not worth the price of a single lynching. It must have been a source of great horror and pain to see such diabolical fruit fall from his work.
As Richard Shickel writes, “We have new ways of seeing and and thinking and perhaps even being which literally did not exist until [Griffith] began his work. And began that chain of artistic invention which has enabled us to see the world through fresh eyes, in a new light.”
I will be presenting THE BIRTH OF A NATION again in a few weeks to mark the 90th anniversary of the picture. Come. See. Learn. Perhaps together we can get the movies out of the shoe boxes Drabinsky stuffed them into. And perhaps Geoff can get “on the beat.”–Reg Hartt (416-603-6643)
===========================================================
12. 2nd response. You are Jewish. I am Irish Catholic. The Ku Klux Klan hated Jews and Irish Catholics as much as it did Blacks. I think that gives both of us a slightly better perspective dealing with the issues this film raises.–Best, Reg Hartt
—– Original Message —–
From: mglass@att.net <mailto:mglass@att.net>
To: Reg Hartt <mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Dear Mr. Hartt:
I don’t know why you sent this particular article to me, but you might be interested in an anecdote of my own.
Several years ago, I was teaching a course on Griffith at Columbia College in L.A.. As any course on Griffith must, I included a showing of BIRTH OF A NATION. I happen to have a beautiful, complete version with an excellent orchestral score.
The class included a couple of b;lack students. After the showing, one of them came up to me and said, “Mr. Glass, I hated some of the basic stories in the film, but I couldn’t help rooting for the Klan as they were riding to the rescue of the beseiged people in the cabin!”
Murray Glass
================================================================
13. Wow – great piece of writing. I really appreciate all the knowledge you have brought to this film. I hope to make it down in a few weeks to catch it!
Thanks again,
Happy New Year!
TOOTS CAPITAL
Val Dooley
Director of Communications
Tel: 416 488-9649
Fax: 416 488-8173
val@tootscapital.com <mailto:val@tootscapital.com>
www.tootscapital.com <http://www.tootscapital.com/>
Let US toot YOUR horn!
============================================================
14. Reg,
Thought you might be interested.
Geoff
—–Original Message—–
From: ReelDrew@aol.com
To: gpevere@thestar.ca
Sent: 1/11/2005 3:52 AM
Subject: on maligning D. W. Griffith

Dear Geoff Pevere,
In your zeal to denigrate D. W. Griffith and “The Birth of a Nation,”
you are guilty of several gross errors and untruths. As a film
historian who has for years attempted to bring recognition to Griffith’s
relevance as a great artist (among my publications is the 1986 book, “D.
W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’: Its Genesis and Its Vision”), I have had to
continually respond to those who, under the guise of presenting facts,
consistently perpetrate myths and outright falsehoods about the
director. The apparent objective is to unmask Griffith as an
evil-minded racist who caused great harm to American society, and in the
service of such an endeavor accuracy is of no concern whatever. I do
not believe these inaccuracies and misstatements are all accidental
slip-ups but represent a calculated effort on the part of these critics
to justify censorship and military occupation, things which they would
normally oppose After a lifetime of battling people such as yourself, I
am frankly sick and tired of the controversy and am presently debating
with myself whether I should even bother to respond to your reckless
disregard for the truth. Nevertheless, I will point out several gross
errors in your article:
1. Margaret Mitchell, not Edna Ferber, was the author of “Gone With
the Wind.” This bizarre inaccuracy has already been pointed out on the
newsgroup, alt.movies.silent. It seems to be typical of your approach
to scholarly research in general.
2. You state that the longest American film made prior to “The Birth
of a Nation” was a four-reel film by Griffith running 40 minutes
(presumably, you mean the 4-reel “Judith of Bethulia” which, at the
proper projection speed, runs about one hour). In fact, most of the
early American features of 1912, 1913 and 1914 were five or six reels in
length. The first full-length US feature, “Richard III” (1912), the
rediscovery of which received great publicity some years ago, was 5
reels in length; Helen Gardner’s “Clipart” (1912) was 6 reels. In 1914,
Mack Senate’s famous comedy feature, “Tile’s Punctured Romance,” was 6
reels, as was the “The Squaw Man,” co-directed by Oscar Capful and Cecil
B. demise. Other films demise directed that year, such as “The
Virginian,” were 5 reels long. In the case of Griffith, the four reels
of “Judith,” his final film for Biography (filmed in 1913, released in
1914), was a compromise between the studio’s insistence on shorter films
and his desire to expand with longer films. After that, Griffith left
Biography and, in partnership with the Aitken brothers, formed his own
company for the purpose of making feature films. In 1914, he directed
the following four features prior to “The Birth of a Nation”: “The
Battle of the Sexes” (5 reels), “The Escape” (7 reels), “Home, Sweet
Home” (6 reels), “The Avenging Conscience” (7-8 reels). I believe the
longest American feature released in 1914 may have been Selig’s version
of the famous Western story, “The Spoilers,” 9 reels in length or nearly
two hours running time at silent speed. 1914 also saw the release of
the first Canadian feature, “Evangeline,” produced by Bioscope at 5
reels. (It was also shown widely in the US.) I guess you simply didn’t
bother to look up the acknowledged facts in making your statement that a
four reel film was the longest American feature prior to “The Birth.”
3. You state that “The Birth” was the most popular film of the entire
silent era. This may be more excusable than the others, but it is still
something which has long been refuted by more scholarly studies. The
biggest box office hit of the whole silent period was King Vidor’s World
War I epic, “The Big Parade,” released in 1925. “The Birth” was the
single most popular American film of the 1910s, no question about that,
but the exaggerated claims of how much money it made and how many people
saw it stem from the Griffith company’s publicity department and the
film’s various distributors over the years. Initially, it was an
understandable way of attracting favorable publicity and increasing its
box office pull during its later revivals. More recently, however, it
has been used as a tool against Griffith and the film by those who, by
accepting the inflated numbers, now assign the film to the central
position in American race relations, in effect, making Griffith
responsible for the entire course (in a negative sense) of the black
experience in much of the 20th century.
4. This leads to your most egregious misstatement, one that is
absolutely unforgivable. You write that, in the year of 1915,
membership in the revived Klan in the state of Georgia alone suddenly
“ballooned to 8 million, and 22 Klan-related lynchings took place. This
is historic fact.” Er–not quite. In 1915, the total population of
Georgia was between two and three million people. 50 years later, the
state’s population was just under four million. It has only been in
recent years that Georgia’s population reached and then surpassed eight
million. As for the figures regarding the number of Klan members in
the US in the period beginning in 1915, membership grew slowly; it was
only in 1920 and 1921, following the breakdown of Progressivism in World
War I and the Red Scare, that the Klan emerged as a powerful
organization in the US. Even so, it never attained 8 million members
nationwide, much less in the state of Georgia. In 1921, it was
estimated that over 100,000 people had joined the Klan; at its peak of
popularity in the mid-20s, membership is estimated to have been 6
million for the entire country. After that, however, it quickly
declined after a series of scandals and widespread corruption brought
upon them well-merited scorn.
The attempt to blame the whole thing on Griffith, which, as the title
of your article suggests, seems to be your main point is excessively
misleading and simplistic. The immediate spark that brought the Klan
back into existence in Georgia was the sensational Leo Frank case which
raged in Georgia throughout 1913 and 1914, climaxing in his lynching in
1915. A Jew from the North, he had been falsely accused of raping and
murdering a young girl named Mary Phagan. Ironically, the real culprit
was a black man who falsely implicated Frank. Members or supporters of
Frank’s lynch mob, calling themselves the Friends of Mary Phagan, soon
started a new Ku Klux Klan, which first appeared in Georgia in November
of 1915. However, they were only a minor organization at that time.
Had the United States managed to stay out of involvement in World War I,
the new KKK would probably have gotten nowhere. What provided the shot
in the arm to turn them into a national phenomenon was the hatreds and
repressive climate spawned by World War I and the reaction to the
demands for greater equality by minorities and labor. The KKK rode the
wave of this reactionary mood for several years, not because of
Griffith’s film (which, in 1920, when the Klan began its first major
recruiting drive, had not been screened for several years) but because
of the right-wing climate of the time. However, most people these days,
instead of undertaking a sophisticated examination of the social,
economic and political strains that gave rise to the revived KKK, prefer
a simple demonization of D. W. Griffith. That Griffith had earlier
directed a film in 1911, “The Rose of Kentucky,” which depicted the Klan
as heavies, and that his pleas for tolerance in “Intolerance” (1916) and
“Broken Blossoms” (1919) were totally opposed to the kind of bigotry
embodied by the revived KKK is something his critics now choose to
forget.
The myths, exaggerations and total fabrications have had their effect
of erasing Griffith’s reputation in his own country. It was 30 years
ago that his centennial was widely observed here and a postage stamp
issued in his honor. Griffith was largely revered as, in the words of
Orson Welles, “the premier genius of our medium.” Sadly, with the
passing of the “Griffith generation” (those directors from Allan Dwan
and King Vidor to Orson Welles and John Huston who were most directly
influenced by him) as well as close associates like Lillian Gish, there
were elements who emerged that were bent on destroying him. They have
succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, symbolized several years ago by
the Director’s Guild of America dumping their DWG lifetime achievement
award amidst a torrent of anti-Griffith invective justifying the move.
In his own country, Griffith is now largely remembered, not as the
visionary who transformed an art worldwide but merely as the “racist”
who allegedly poisoned American race relations. His detractors never
mention his criticism of the capitalist system in his films, his
championship of women, the poor, the Native Americans, his opposition to
war, the death penalty and (in a number of films) racism. Instead, they
have created a monster bearing no resemblance to the real individual.
In order to create this unlovely, fanciful portrait, they will not
hesitate to make up any story, circulate any outrageous claim. A number
of years ago, a writer named Homer Croy wrote a fictionalized account of
Griffith’s life in which he included an invented tale and character, a
black maid of Griffith’s who was allegedly so offended by “The Birth”
that she angrily departed his service. Although this incident never
took place nor did the woman even exist, the story of Cora the black
maid who stood up to the nefarious Griffith was related as fact in a
widely-seen PBS documentary on black filmmakers and has continued to
circulate ever since, despite my own efforts to point out the falsity of
this anecdote. I would be typing a far longer letter than this if I
were to point out the errors and outright lies that inevitably crop up
in articles, books, documentaries etc. intending to malign Griffith. In
fact, I have never yet seen an article slamming Griffith over “The
Birth” without its including at least one or two such falsifications.
The beleaguered few who still try to uphold his reputation are, by
contrast, usually much more accurate.
As to why people persist in this pattern of distortion instead of
relating the simple facts, I believe it is largely because they
subscribe to the same kind of “noble lie” advanced by the Straussian
neocons to justify such actions as the US conquest of Iraq. After all,
if the goal is the lofty one of creating a democratic Middle East or a
racially egalitarian society, why bother with a little thing like the
truth? So go ahead–repeat the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda–and that Griffith was the
main source of all of America’s racial problems and that his film led to
hundreds of people being killed. (I’ve done considerable research in
the papers of that period, and I’ve yet to uncover a single instance of
a showing of “The Birth” provoking a lynching or a deadly race riot.
The violence it caused was mainly in the form of scattered fist fights
and vandalism during the course of protest demonstrations.
Significantly, no one has ever sought reparations because of some
supposed harm done to them or their family because of the release of
“The Birth.”) However, if Griffith’s enemies have their way, the film
may finally lead to bloodshed–any individual publicly showing “The
Birth” in the US today runs the risk of being killed. Just last year,
when Charlie Lustman announced his intention of screening “The Birth”
for one night only at his Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, his life
was threatened and protestors spoke of burning down the theatre.
Thus, Griffith’s foes through their litany of errors and falsehoods
have succeeded in creating such a climate of fear that it is virtually
impossible now to have even a limited public screening of the film. And
they have so tarnished Griffith’s name that few people here are even
willing to discuss any of his work with the blending of sympathy and
objectivity that is essential to all valid aesthetic criticism. That in
discrediting the film’s depiction of history in favor of a rosy picture
of the Reconstruction era they are also trying to justify military
occupation is perhaps another reason for their persistence. In their
heart of hearts, they know “The Birth of a Nation” is essentially
truthful in its portrayal of the harshness of a civilian population
being subjected to military rule. The nagging feeling that many of
these critics have that Griffith’s film IS valid is one reason they are
driven to such frenzies. An outrageously foolish distortion of
historical reality would hardly arouse such fierce opposition for such a
long time. It is the truth which hurts–and the truth which must be
suppressed. There is no such thing as a “nice” military occupation–as
is being demonstrated once again in the US aggression in Iraq and was
also true in the defeated South in the 19th century.
Given my great respect for Canada and Canadians, I am sorry to see
that even a Canadian publication has signed on to the mountain of
misinformation that has destroyed D. W. Griffith’s reputation in his own
country. Griffith was very much a friend of Canada and in the mid-20s
made a speech in the Canadian parliament in which he urged them to
develop their own film industry independent of both Hollywood and
Britain. However, it appears that the use of a common language,
English, facilitates the spread of the anti-Griffith propaganda since it
is largely in the non-English-speaking world (countries like France and
Japan) that Griffith is now most highly regarded.
Perhaps this letter has been another exercise in futility on my part.
But in closing, I’m providing a link to my own online article on
Griffith which, I believe, places his achievements in the proper
perspective. The URL is: <http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>> It is part of my series
of articles on great silent film directors representing every inhabited
continent of the globe at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>> I have also included some
of Griffith’s anti-war statements in my online “pamphlet,” “Hollywood’s
Answer to War,” at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>>

Sincerely,
William M. Drew
PS. The photo used to accompany your article is from Griffith’s “Abraham
Lincoln,” not “The Birth of a Nation.” Yet another error.
=========================================================
15. I am. Thanks. I understood THE FOUR HOSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE to be the only film that surpassed THE BIRTH at the box office. Had someone else written a letter to the editor I would not have. We both know you are not a member of any “conspiracy” or “cabal.” You have too much integrity for that kind of silliness. The fact that you are your own person is why I read you.
I once heard a priest deliver a sermon that was 100% anti-Christ. I asked him, “Do you know what you just said?” He turned to a woman and asked. “Did I say that?” “You could not have,” she said, “but it sounded like you did.” Shortly after I got the heave from that church. I stopped going to churches a lonng time ago.
For me, Griffith is the only way out. You have not done what I have done. By that I mean not only the on the road presentations to packed cinemas across the country at premium prices only to have them come to an abrupt end because the fellow who ran Ottawa’s Towne Cinema slandered you from coast to coast (John Tutt, of Waterloo’s Princess Cinema, was told by this man, “I can’t believe you still do shows with Reg Hartt?” John replied, “The audience loves him. His shows fill the theatre.”) nor have you tried to work with Famous Players or Cineplex Odeon only to discover if I do I will wind up owing more money than I make.
You have not researched a film like THE BIRTH, THE FOUR HORSEMEN, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, METROPOLIS, etc., created a bitching score for it, watched the current generation go nuts over the film (due to the music which causes them to see the film in a new and exciting way) and then seen your labours dismissed by the so-called intellegentsia (which is rarely intelligent) all the time watching people like NFB vet Doug Eliuk, Hanna Fisher and John Roberts (our Minister of Culture under Trudeau) applaud your efforts.
You have not seen the smarmy, dismissive smiles on the faces of many in the film community who say, “Well, if you go there, you have to listen to him,” only to have the very great pleasure of hearing a Jane Jacobs, a Tibetan Lama, a host of others say, “The best part of these programs is what you bring to the table.”
Don’t get me wrong. I am not bowed under by those who dismiss my work. I am carried up by those who, without being told, recognize a value in it..
No, you have not done that. But you have done things I do not know of that have been equally frustrating for you.
I have always wanted to make films. I don’t want to make a film and, at the last moment, have the money men say, “Well, you can not do that.” So I chose the hard path.
The first time I was asked to speak in school extemporaneously I saw a word coming out that carried the penalty of a trip to the office and the strap. I accepted the penalty. To my surprise I did not have to pay it.
The next day a fellow who hated me used the same word. He got the strap. I was furious. I asked the teacher why he was being punished and I had not been. “Are you trying to make me look like teacher’s pet?!” I asked.
“I watched you choosing. I watched you accepting the responsibility of your choice. You were right. He was just walking through the door you opened.” I was told.
Griffith lifted movies up out of the Nickelodeon. There may well have been other features before him. He was the first to charge $2 $200 today) a seat for a movie. He did that because he saw no other way to quickly pay back the money his producers were hounding him for (the top price for a live play was $2.50. He figured if they’d pay $2.50 for George M. Cohan they’d pay $2 for him).
What people pay for movies today is the same as the 5cents they paid yesterday. Garth Drabinsky singlehandedly took the movies back to where they were before Griffith.
Anyway, live is short. I don’t care to rant at someone I care about (and I am not ranting).
One time I showed Eisenstein’s TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (1927) with a purely perfunctory music track. One fellow came up to me and said, “You can do a better job than that.” I did not get angry with him because he was right. At that moment he gave me the kick in the ass I needed to do the job right. That week I went to work creating a new score for the film. I was forced to stretch myself and it was a good thing.
There is much in the piece you sent that I did not know (especially about the KKK). Thanks.
You have no idea how much of a joy it is to open the paper and discover you talking about things no one else in this country does. When we make mistakes we give our enemies the ammunition they need to dismiss us. Your worst mistake in the Griffith piece was crediting Edna Ferber for Margaret Mitchell’s work because that is the one that most obviously shows the error.
That is why it is important to be “on the beat.” Obviously, The Toronto Film Society does not give a damn about being on the beat. Neither do most folk in the film scene. But the kids who line up across the country for my programs (and once in a while in the United States) walk out saying, “I did not know this much fun was allowed.” (A kid actually said that).
Here’s one I just got for Sunday’s KID DRACULA show:
hi Reg,

i was at the showing of Kid Dracula last night (which was
awesome by the way) and i just wanted to thank you for
sharing your thoughts with us when the movie was over.
besides being entertaining i thought you made a lot of very
interesting and valid points that really got me thinking. my
boyfriend and i were talking about many of the things you
said long after we left your place. although i throurouly
enjoyed the show, the highlight of the night was definately
your talk at the end. i have to tell you that i admire your
openess and honesty, but most of all your willingness to pass
on your knowledge and opinions to others. i was wondering if
you could email me the names of the three books you
mentioned are worth reading. i tried as hard as i could to
remember them, but my short term memory doesn’t tend to
be very reliable… especially when i’m stoned. i also wanted to
ask you what the lifetime membership to the Cineforum is all
about and if you play the same movies every sunday (i really
want to see Dark Side of Oz sometime soon). anyway, thanks
again for sharing your thoughts and i hope i get to hear more
of what you have to say sometime soon.

cheers,
Christina

March marks the 90th anniversary of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. I have been acquiring Griffith titles (including the Biograph shorts few of which I have seen). Would you like to join me in honouring this much maligned man? Remember. THE BIRTH OF A NATION was an independent film. Griffith is the father of that too. The only future I can see for the serious film artist is the path Griffith walked. He “four-walled” (rented outright) The Liberty Theatre for THE BIRTH. Chaplin four-walled THE GEORGE M. COHAN THEATRE for CITY LIGHTS. Chaplin was told silent films were old hat. No one wanted to show his film. He gambled on himself. After a few weeks those who had turned their noses at his silent film were begging to be let play it. The fellow who made BILLY JACK did the same.
I once saw a dog get run over by a car. I went to where it ran to hide (I was amazed it had not been killed as both the fronmt and rear wheels passed over it) and offered it my hand, palm down, saying over and over, softly, “It is okay.” The dog snapped its jaws shut on my hand (which I expected it to do). I did not expect it to do that so gently there was only a slight dent from one tooth on a finger. Then it stopped barking and let me help it.
I doubt sincerely Norman Jewison could do that. I am one of a kind. So are you. The kind we are one of is very rare. Life only makes one model of each.
There is no such thing as an “hysterical person.” I saw, peripherally, an old man get roughed up by two young men on Yonge street. I was on the west side. He was on the east. He got angry. They passed by. No one but myself saw what had happened. The sleepwalkers woke up to his rage (”hysteria”) and got scared. A police car stopped. The old man was roughly handled and shoved in the back of the car. I crossed the street saying to one of the cops, “Can I talk with you? “Mind your own business,” I was told. “I am minding my own business. I saw what happened.” At that they listened, got the old man out of the police car, apologized for handling him so roughly and took him into a coffee shop. I learned the need to do that from Doris Mehegan (who ran THE SPACED OUT LIBRARY, now THE JUDITH MERRIL COLLECTION).
Yesterday, at 5am, I heard the sound of someone being beaten in front of this house. I woke up, stumbled to the window (without my glasses) and at once called 911. It turned out to be the police catching a suspect. It was a pretty horrendous sight. More horrendous was the emergency operator’s dismissive voice as if them doing that somehow made it okay to beat this man to a pulp. Every once in a while the veil lifts and we see we are living in a police state (as all states are).–Reg
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
To: ‘rhartt4363@rogers.com’ <mailto:’rhartt4363@rogers.com’>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 6:24 AM
Subject: FW: on maligning D. W. Griffith
Reg,
Thought you might be interested.
Geoff
—–Original Message—–
From: ReelDrew@aol.com <mailto:ReelDrew@aol.com>
To: gpevere@thestar.ca <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
Sent: 1/11/2005 3:52 AM
Subject: on maligning D. W. Griffith

Dear Geoff Pevere,
In your zeal to denigrate D. W. Griffith and “The Birth of a Nation,”
you are guilty of several gross errors and untruths. As a film
historian who has for years attempted to bring recognition to Griffith’s
relevance as a great artist (among my publications is the 1986 book, “D.
W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’: Its Genesis and Its Vision”), I have had to
continually respond to those who, under the guise of presenting facts,
consistently perpetrate myths and outright falsehoods about the
director. The apparent objective is to unmask Griffith as an
evil-minded racist who caused great harm to American society, and in the
service of such an endeavor accuracy is of no concern whatever. I do
not believe these inaccuracies and misstatements are all accidental
slip-ups but represent a calculated effort on the part of these critics
to justify censorship and military occupation, things which they would
normally oppose After a lifetime of battling people such as yourself, I
am frankly sick and tired of the controversy and am presently debating
with myself whether I should even bother to respond to your reckless
disregard for the truth. Nevertheless, I will point out several gross
errors in your article:
1. Margaret Mitchell, not Edna Ferber, was the author of “Gone With
the Wind.” This bizarre inaccuracy has already been pointed out on the
newsgroup, alt.movies.silent. It seems to be typical of your approach
to scholarly research in general.
2. You state that the longest American film made prior to “The Birth
of a Nation” was a four-reel film by Griffith running 40 minutes
(presumably, you mean the 4-reel “Judith of Bethulia” which, at the
proper projection speed, runs about one hour). In fact, most of the
early American features of 1912, 1913 and 1914 were five or six reels in
length. The first full-length US feature, “Richard III” (1912), the
rediscovery of which received great publicity some years ago, was 5
reels in length; Helen Gardner’s “Clipart” (1912) was 6 reels. In 1914,
Mack Senate’s famous comedy feature, “Tile’s Punctured Romance,” was 6
reels, as was the “The Squaw Man,” co-directed by Oscar Capful and Cecil
B. demise. Other films demise directed that year, such as “The
Virginian,” were 5 reels long. In the case of Griffith, the four reels
of “Judith,” his final film for Biography (filmed in 1913, released in
1914), was a compromise between the studio’s insistence on shorter films
and his desire to expand with longer films. After that, Griffith left
Biography and, in partnership with the Aitken brothers, formed his own
company for the purpose of making feature films. In 1914, he directed
the following four features prior to “The Birth of a Nation”: “The
Battle of the Sexes” (5 reels), “The Escape” (7 reels), “Home, Sweet
Home” (6 reels), “The Avenging Conscience” (7-8 reels). I believe the
longest American feature released in 1914 may have been Selig’s version
of the famous Western story, “The Spoilers,” 9 reels in length or nearly
two hours running time at silent speed. 1914 also saw the release of
the first Canadian feature, “Evangeline,” produced by Bioscope at 5
reels. (It was also shown widely in the US.) I guess you simply didn’t
bother to look up the acknowledged facts in making your statement that a
four reel film was the longest American feature prior to “The Birth.”
3. You state that “The Birth” was the most popular film of the entire
silent era. This may be more excusable than the others, but it is still
something which has long been refuted by more scholarly studies. The
biggest box office hit of the whole silent period was King Vidor’s World
War I epic, “The Big Parade,” released in 1925. “The Birth” was the
single most popular American film of the 1910s, no question about that,
but the exaggerated claims of how much money it made and how many people
saw it stem from the Griffith company’s publicity department and the
film’s various distributors over the years. Initially, it was an
understandable way of attracting favorable publicity and increasing its
box office pull during its later revivals. More recently, however, it
has been used as a tool against Griffith and the film by those who, by
accepting the inflated numbers, now assign the film to the central
position in American race relations, in effect, making Griffith
responsible for the entire course (in a negative sense) of the black
experience in much of the 20th century.
4. This leads to your most egregious misstatement, one that is
absolutely unforgivable. You write that, in the year of 1915,
membership in the revived Klan in the state of Georgia alone suddenly
“ballooned to 8 million, and 22 Klan-related lynchings took place. This
is historic fact.” Er–not quite. In 1915, the total population of
Georgia was between two and three million people. 50 years later, the
state’s population was just under four million. It has only been in
recent years that Georgia’s population reached and then surpassed eight
million. As for the figures regarding the number of Klan members in
the US in the period beginning in 1915, membership grew slowly; it was
only in 1920 and 1921, following the breakdown of Progressivism in World
War I and the Red Scare, that the Klan emerged as a powerful
organization in the US. Even so, it never attained 8 million members
nationwide, much less in the state of Georgia. In 1921, it was
estimated that over 100,000 people had joined the Klan; at its peak of
popularity in the mid-20s, membership is estimated to have been 6
million for the entire country. After that, however, it quickly
declined after a series of scandals and widespread corruption brought
upon them well-merited scorn.
The attempt to blame the whole thing on Griffith, which, as the title
of your article suggests, seems to be your main point is excessively
misleading and simplistic. The immediate spark that brought the Klan
back into existence in Georgia was the sensational Leo Frank case which
raged in Georgia throughout 1913 and 1914, climaxing in his lynching in
1915. A Jew from the North, he had been falsely accused of raping and
murdering a young girl named Mary Phagan. Ironically, the real culprit
was a black man who falsely implicated Frank. Members or supporters of
Frank’s lynch mob, calling themselves the Friends of Mary Phagan, soon
started a new Ku Klux Klan, which first appeared in Georgia in November
of 1915. However, they were only a minor organization at that time.
Had the United States managed to stay out of involvement in World War I,
the new KKK would probably have gotten nowhere. What provided the shot
in the arm to turn them into a national phenomenon was the hatreds and
repressive climate spawned by World War I and the reaction to the
demands for greater equality by minorities and labor. The KKK rode the
wave of this reactionary mood for several years, not because of
Griffith’s film (which, in 1920, when the Klan began its first major
recruiting drive, had not been screened for several years) but because
of the right-wing climate of the time. However, most people these days,
instead of undertaking a sophisticated examination of the social,
economic and political strains that gave rise to the revived KKK, prefer
a simple demonization of D. W. Griffith. That Griffith had earlier
directed a film in 1911, “The Rose of Kentucky,” which depicted the Klan
as heavies, and that his pleas for tolerance in “Intolerance” (1916) and
“Broken Blossoms” (1919) were totally opposed to the kind of bigotry
embodied by the revived KKK is something his critics now choose to
forget.
The myths, exaggerations and total fabrications have had their effect
of erasing Griffith’s reputation in his own country. It was 30 years
ago that his centennial was widely observed here and a postage stamp
issued in his honor. Griffith was largely revered as, in the words of
Orson Welles, “the premier genius of our medium.” Sadly, with the
passing of the “Griffith generation” (those directors from Allan Dwan
and King Vidor to Orson Welles and John Huston who were most directly
influenced by him) as well as close associates like Lillian Gish, there
were elements who emerged that were bent on destroying him. They have
succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, symbolized several years ago by
the Director’s Guild of America dumping their DWG lifetime achievement
award amidst a torrent of anti-Griffith invective justifying the move.
In his own country, Griffith is now largely remembered, not as the
visionary who transformed an art worldwide but merely as the “racist”
who allegedly poisoned American race relations. His detractors never
mention his criticism of the capitalist system in his films, his
championship of women, the poor, the Native Americans, his opposition to
war, the death penalty and (in a number of films) racism. Instead, they
have created a monster bearing no resemblance to the real individual.
In order to create this unlovely, fanciful portrait, they will not
hesitate to make up any story, circulate any outrageous claim. A number
of years ago, a writer named Homer Croy wrote a fictionalized account of
Griffith’s life in which he included an invented tale and character, a
black maid of Griffith’s who was allegedly so offended by “The Birth”
that she angrily departed his service. Although this incident never
took place nor did the woman even exist, the story of Cora the black
maid who stood up to the nefarious Griffith was related as fact in a
widely-seen PBS documentary on black filmmakers and has continued to
circulate ever since, despite my own efforts to point out the falsity of
this anecdote. I would be typing a far longer letter than this if I
were to point out the errors and outright lies that inevitably crop up
in articles, books, documentaries etc. intending to malign Griffith. In
fact, I have never yet seen an article slamming Griffith over “The
Birth” without its including at least one or two such falsifications.
The beleaguered few who still try to uphold his reputation are, by
contrast, usually much more accurate.
As to why people persist in this pattern of distortion instead of
relating the simple facts, I believe it is largely because they
subscribe to the same kind of “noble lie” advanced by the Straussian
neocons to justify such actions as the US conquest of Iraq. After all,
if the goal is the lofty one of creating a democratic Middle East or a
racially egalitarian society, why bother with a little thing like the
truth? So go ahead–repeat the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda–and that Griffith was the
main source of all of America’s racial problems and that his film led to
hundreds of people being killed. (I’ve done considerable research in
the papers of that period, and I’ve yet to uncover a single instance of
a showing of “The Birth” provoking a lynching or a deadly race riot.
The violence it caused was mainly in the form of scattered fist fights
and vandalism during the course of protest demonstrations.
Significantly, no one has ever sought reparations because of some
supposed harm done to them or their family because of the release of
“The Birth.”) However, if Griffith’s enemies have their way, the film
may finally lead to bloodshed–any individual publicly showing “The
Birth” in the US today runs the risk of being killed. Just last year,
when Charlie Lustman announced his intention of screening “The Birth”
for one night only at his Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, his life
was threatened and protestors spoke of burning down the theatre.
Thus, Griffith’s foes through their litany of errors and falsehoods
have succeeded in creating such a climate of fear that it is virtually
impossible now to have even a limited public screening of the film. And
they have so tarnished Griffith’s name that few people here are even
willing to discuss any of his work with the blending of sympathy and
objectivity that is essential to all valid aesthetic criticism. That in
discrediting the film’s depiction of history in favor of a rosy picture
of the Reconstruction era they are also trying to justify military
occupation is perhaps another reason for their persistence. In their
heart of hearts, they know “The Birth of a Nation” is essentially
truthful in its portrayal of the harshness of a civilian population
being subjected to military rule. The nagging feeling that many of
these critics have that Griffith’s film IS valid is one reason they are
driven to such frenzies. An outrageously foolish distortion of
historical reality would hardly arouse such fierce opposition for such a
long time. It is the truth which hurts–and the truth which must be
suppressed. There is no such thing as a “nice” military occupation–as
is being demonstrated once again in the US aggression in Iraq and was
also true in the defeated South in the 19th century.
Given my great respect for Canada and Canadians, I am sorry to see
that even a Canadian publication has signed on to the mountain of
misinformation that has destroyed D. W. Griffith’s reputation in his own
country. Griffith was very much a friend of Canada and in the mid-20s
made a speech in the Canadian parliament in which he urged them to
develop their own film industry independent of both Hollywood and
Britain. However, it appears that the use of a common language,
English, facilitates the spread of the anti-Griffith propaganda since it
is largely in the non-English-speaking world (countries like France and
Japan) that Griffith is now most highly regarded.
Perhaps this letter has been another exercise in futility on my part.
But in closing, I’m providing a link to my own online article on
Griffith which, I believe, places his achievements in the proper
perspective. The URL is: <http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>> It is part of my series
of articles on great silent film directors representing every inhabited
continent of the globe at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>> I have also included some
of Griffith’s anti-war statements in my online “pamphlet,” “Hollywood’s
Answer to War,” at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>>

Sincerely,
William M. Drew
PS. The photo used to accompany your article is from Griffith’s “Abraham
Lincoln,” not “The Birth of a Nation.” Yet another error.
=====================================================
16. If you want to astonish the person who wrote you accusing you of belonging to a conspiracy thank him for the info. There’s certainly a lot there to be thankful for.–Reg
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>
To: ‘Reg Hartt ‘ <mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:01 AM
Subject: RE: one of a kind
Reg,
Thanks for this. And, by all means, carry on.
Not that you need me to tell you that…
best,
Geoff
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Pevere, Geoff
Sent: 1/11/2005 10:08 AM
Subject: one of a kind
I am. Thanks. I understood THE FOUR HOSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE to be the
only film that surpassed THE BIRTH at the box office. Had someone else
written a letter to the editor I would not have. We both know you are
not a member of any “conspiracy” or “cabal.” You have too much integrity
for that kind of silliness. The fact that you are your own person is why
I read you.

I once heard a priest deliver a sermon that was 100% anti-Christ. I
asked him, “Do you know what you just said?” He turned to a woman and
asked. “Did I say that?” “You could not have,” she said, “but it sounded
like you did.” Shortly after I got the heave from that church. I stopped
going to churches a lonng time ago.

For me, Griffith is the only way out. You have not done what I have
done. By that I mean not only the on the road presentations to packed
cinemas across the country at premium prices only to have them come to
an abrupt end because the fellow who ran Ottawa’s Towne Cinema slandered
you from coast to coast (John Tutt, of Waterloo’s Princess Cinema, was
told by this man, “I can’t believe you still do shows with Reg Hartt?”
John replied, “The audience loves him. His shows fill the theatre.”) nor
have you tried to work with Famous Players or Cineplex Odeon only to
discover if I do I will wind up owing more money than I make.

You have not researched a film like THE BIRTH, THE FOUR HORSEMEN, THE
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, METROPOLIS, etc., created a bitching score for it,
watched the current generation go nuts over the film (due to the music
which causes them to see the film in a new and exciting way) and then
seen your labours dismissed by the so-called intellegentsia (which is
rarely intelligent) all the time watching people like NFB vet Doug
Eliuk, Hanna Fisher and John Roberts (our Minister of Culture under
Trudeau) applaud your efforts.

You have not seen the smarmy, dismissive smiles on the faces of many in
the film community who say, “Well, if you go there, you have to listen
to him,” only to have the very great pleasure of hearing a Jane Jacobs,
a Tibetan Lama, a host of others say, “The best part of these programs
is what you bring to the table.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not bowed under by those who dismiss my work. I
am carried up by those who, without being told, recognize a value in
it..

No, you have not done that. But you have done things I do not know of
that have been equally frustrating for you.

I have always wanted to make films. I don’t want to make a film and, at
the last moment, have the money men say, “Well, you can not do that.” So
I chose the hard path.

The first time I was asked to speak in school extemporaneously I saw a
word coming out that carried the penalty of a trip to the office and the
strap. I accepted the penalty. To my surprise I did not have to pay it.

The next day a fellow who hated me used the same word. He got the strap.
I was furious. I asked the teacher why he was being punished and I had
not been. “Are you trying to make me look like teacher’s pet?!” I asked.

“I watched you choosing. I watched you accepting the responsibility of
your choice. You were right. He was just walking through the door you
opened.” I was told.

Griffith lifted movies up out of the Nickelodeon. There may well have
been other features before him. He was the first to charge $2 $200
today) a seat for a movie. He did that because he saw no other way to
quickly pay back the money his producers were hounding him for (the top
price for a live play was $2.50. He figured if they’d pay $2.50 for
George M. Cohan they’d pay $2 for him).

What people pay for movies today is the same as the 5cents they paid
yesterday. Garth Drabinsky singlehandedly took the movies back to where
they were before Griffith.

Anyway, live is short. I don’t care to rant at someone I care about (and
I am not ranting).

One time I showed Eisenstein’s TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (1927) with
a purely perfunctory music track. One fellow came up to me and said,
“You can do a better job than that.” I did not get angry with him
because he was right. At that moment he gave me the kick in the ass I
needed to do the job right. That week I went to work creating a new
score for the film. I was forced to stretch myself and it was a good
thing.

There is much in the piece you sent that I did not know (especially
about the KKK). Thanks.

You have no idea how much of a joy it is to open the paper and discover
you talking about things no one else in this country does. When we make
mistakes we give our enemies the ammunition they need to dismiss us.
Your worst mistake in the Griffith piece was crediting Edna Ferber for
Margaret Mitchell’s work because that is the one that most obviously
shows the error.

That is why it is important to be “on the beat.” Obviously, The Toronto
Film Society does not give a damn about being on the beat. Neither do
most folk in the film scene. But the kids who line up across the country
for my programs (and once in a while in the United States) walk out
saying, “I did not know this much fun was allowed.” (A kid actually said
that).

Here’s one I just got for Sunday’s KID DRACULA show:

hi Reg,
i was at the showing of Kid Dracula last night (which was
awesome by the way) and i just wanted to thank you for
sharing your thoughts with us when the movie was over.
besides being entertaining i thought you made a lot of very
interesting and valid points that really got me thinking. my
boyfriend and i were talking about many of the things you
said long after we left your place. although i throurouly
enjoyed the show, the highlight of the night was definately
your talk at the end. i have to tell you that i admire your
openess and honesty, but most of all your willingness to pass
on your knowledge and opinions to others. i was wondering if
you could email me the names of the three books you
mentioned are worth reading. i tried as hard as i could to
remember them, but my short term memory doesn’t tend to
be very reliable… especially when i’m stoned. i also wanted to
ask you what the lifetime membership to the Cineforum is all
about and if you play the same movies every sunday (i really
want to see Dark Side of Oz sometime soon). anyway, thanks
again for sharing your thoughts and i hope i get to hear more
of what you have to say sometime soon.
cheers,
Christina
March marks the 90th anniversary of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. I have been
acquiring Griffith titles (including the Biograph shorts few of which I
have seen). Would you like to join me in honouring this much maligned
man? Remember. THE BIRTH OF A NATION was an independent film. Griffith
is the father of that too. The only future I can see for the serious
film artist is the path Griffith walked. He “four-walled” (rented
outright) The Liberty Theatre for THE BIRTH. Chaplin four-walled THE
GEORGE M. COHAN THEATRE for CITY LIGHTS. Chaplin was told silent films
were old hat. No one wanted to show his film. He gambled on himself.
After a few weeks those who had turned their noses at his silent film
were begging to be let play it. The fellow who made BILLY JACK did the
same.

I once saw a dog get run over by a car. I went to where it ran to hide
(I was amazed it had not been killed as both the fronmt and rear wheels
passed over it) and offered it my hand, palm down, saying over and over,
softly, “It is okay.” The dog snapped its jaws shut on my hand (which I
expected it to do). I did not expect it to do that so gently there was
only a slight dent from one tooth on a finger. Then it stopped barking
and let me help it.

I doubt sincerely Norman Jewison could do that. I am one of a kind. So
are you. The kind we are one of is very rare. Life only makes one model
of each.

There is no such thing as an “hysterical person.” I saw, peripherally,
an old man get roughed up by two young men on Yonge street. I was on the
west side. He was on the east. He got angry. They passed by. No one but
myself saw what had happened. The sleepwalkers woke up to his rage
(”hysteria”) and got scared. A police car stopped. The old man was
roughly handled and shoved in the back of the car. I crossed the street
saying to one of the cops, “Can I talk with you? “Mind your own
business,” I was told. “I am minding my own business. I saw what
happened.” At that they listened, got the old man out of the police car,
apologized for handling him so roughly and took him into a coffee shop.
I learned the need to do that from Doris Mehegan (who ran THE SPACED OUT
LIBRARY, now THE JUDITH MERRIL COLLECTION).

Yesterday, at 5am, I heard the sound of someone being beaten in front of
this house. I woke up, stumbled to the window (without my glasses) and
at once called 911. It turned out to be the police catching a suspect.
It was a pretty horrendous sight. More horrendous was the emergency
operator’s dismissive voice as if them doing that somehow made it okay
to beat this man to a pulp. Every once in a while the veil lifts and we
see we are living in a police state (as all states are).–Reg
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
To: ‘rhartt4363@rogers.com’ <<mailto:’rhartt4363@rogers.com’>>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 6:24 AM
Subject: FW: on maligning D. W. Griffith
Reg,
Thought you might be interested.
Geoff
—–Original Message—–
From: ReelDrew@aol.com <<mailto:ReelDrew@aol.com>>
To: gpevere@thestar.ca <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
Sent: 1/11/2005 3:52 AM
Subject: on maligning D. W. Griffith

Dear Geoff Pevere,
In your zeal to denigrate D. W. Griffith and “The Birth of a Nation,”
you are guilty of several gross errors and untruths. As a film
historian who has for years attempted to bring recognition to Griffith’s
relevance as a great artist (among my publications is the 1986 book, “D.
W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’: Its Genesis and Its Vision”), I have had to
continually respond to those who, under the guise of presenting facts,
consistently perpetrate myths and outright falsehoods about the
director. The apparent objective is to unmask Griffith as an
evil-minded racist who caused great harm to American society, and in the
service of such an endeavor accuracy is of no concern whatever. I do
not believe these inaccuracies and misstatements are all accidental
slip-ups but represent a calculated effort on the part of these critics
to justify censorship and military occupation, things which they would
normally oppose After a lifetime of battling people such as yourself, I
am frankly sick and tired of the controversy and am presently debating
with myself whether I should even bother to respond to your reckless
disregard for the truth. Nevertheless, I will point out several gross
errors in your article:
1. Margaret Mitchell, not Edna Ferber, was the author of “Gone With
the Wind.” This bizarre inaccuracy has already been pointed out on the
newsgroup, alt.movies.silent. It seems to be typical of your approach
to scholarly research in general.
2. You state that the longest American film made prior to “The Birth
of a Nation” was a four-reel film by Griffith running 40 minutes
(presumably, you mean the 4-reel “Judith of Bethulia” which, at the
proper projection speed, runs about one hour). In fact, most of the
early American features of 1912, 1913 and 1914 were five or six reels in
length. The first full-length US feature, “Richard III” (1912), the
rediscovery of which received great publicity some years ago, was 5
reels in length; Helen Gardner’s “Clipart” (1912) was 6 reels. In 1914,
Mack Senate’s famous comedy feature, “Tile’s Punctured Romance,” was 6
reels, as was the “The Squaw Man,” co-directed by Oscar Capful and Cecil
B. demise. Other films demise directed that year, such as “The
Virginian,” were 5 reels long. In the case of Griffith, the four reels
of “Judith,” his final film for Biography (filmed in 1913, released in
1914), was a compromise between the studio’s insistence on shorter films
and his desire to expand with longer films. After that, Griffith left
Biography and, in partnership with the Aitken brothers, formed his own
company for the purpose of making feature films. In 1914, he directed
the following four features prior to “The Birth of a Nation”: “The
Battle of the Sexes” (5 reels), “The Escape” (7 reels), “Home, Sweet
Home” (6 reels), “The Avenging Conscience” (7-8 reels). I believe the
longest American feature released in 1914 may have been Selig’s version
of the famous Western story, “The Spoilers,” 9 reels in length or nearly
two hours running time at silent speed. 1914 also saw the release of
the first Canadian feature, “Evangeline,” produced by Bioscope at 5
reels. (It was also shown widely in the US.) I guess you simply didn’t
bother to look up the acknowledged facts in making your statement that a
four reel film was the longest American feature prior to “The Birth.”
3. You state that “The Birth” was the most popular film of the entire
silent era. This may be more excusable than the others, but it is still
something which has long been refuted by more scholarly studies. The
biggest box office hit of the whole silent period was King Vidor’s World
War I epic, “The Big Parade,” released in 1925. “The Birth” was the
single most popular American film of the 1910s, no question about that,
but the exaggerated claims of how much money it made and how many people
saw it stem from the Griffith company’s publicity department and the
film’s various distributors over the years. Initially, it was an
understandable way of attracting favorable publicity and increasing its
box office pull during its later revivals. More recently, however, it
has been used as a tool against Griffith and the film by those who, by
accepting the inflated numbers, now assign the film to the central
position in American race relations, in effect, making Griffith
responsible for the entire course (in a negative sense) of the black
experience in much of the 20th century.
4. This leads to your most egregious misstatement, one that is
absolutely unforgivable. You write that, in the year of 1915,
membership in the revived Klan in the state of Georgia alone suddenly
“ballooned to 8 million, and 22 Klan-related lynchings took place. This
is historic fact.” Er–not quite. In 1915, the total population of
Georgia was between two and three million people. 50 years later, the
state’s population was just under four million. It has only been in
recent years that Georgia’s population reached and then surpassed eight
million. As for the figures regarding the number of Klan members in
the US in the period beginning in 1915, membership grew slowly; it was
only in 1920 and 1921, following the breakdown of Progressivism in World
War I and the Red Scare, that the Klan emerged as a powerful
organization in the US. Even so, it never attained 8 million members
nationwide, much less in the state of Georgia. In 1921, it was
estimated that over 100,000 people had joined the Klan; at its peak of
popularity in the mid-20s, membership is estimated to have been 6
million for the entire country. After that, however, it quickly
declined after a series of scandals and widespread corruption brought
upon them well-merited scorn.
The attempt to blame the whole thing on Griffith, which, as the title
of your article suggests, seems to be your main point is excessively
misleading and simplistic. The immediate spark that brought the Klan
back into existence in Georgia was the sensational Leo Frank case which
raged in Georgia throughout 1913 and 1914, climaxing in his lynching in
1915. A Jew from the North, he had been falsely accused of raping and
murdering a young girl named Mary Phagan. Ironically, the real culprit
was a black man who falsely implicated Frank. Members or supporters of
Frank’s lynch mob, calling themselves the Friends of Mary Phagan, soon
started a new Ku Klux Klan, which first appeared in Georgia in November
of 1915. However, they were only a minor organization at that time.
Had the United States managed to stay out of involvement in World War I,
the new KKK would probably have gotten nowhere. What provided the shot
in the arm to turn them into a national phenomenon was the hatreds and
repressive climate spawned by World War I and the reaction to the
demands for greater equality by minorities and labor. The KKK rode the
wave of this reactionary mood for several years, not because of
Griffith’s film (which, in 1920, when the Klan began its first major
recruiting drive, had not been screened for several years) but because
of the right-wing climate of the time. However, most people these days,
instead of undertaking a sophisticated examination of the social,
economic and political strains that gave rise to the revived KKK, prefer
a simple demonization of D. W. Griffith. That Griffith had earlier
directed a film in 1911, “The Rose of Kentucky,” which depicted the Klan
as heavies, and that his pleas for tolerance in “Intolerance” (1916) and
“Broken Blossoms” (1919) were totally opposed to the kind of bigotry
embodied by the revived KKK is something his critics now choose to
forget.
The myths, exaggerations and total fabrications have had their effect
of erasing Griffith’s reputation in his own country. It was 30 years
ago that his centennial was widely observed here and a postage stamp
issued in his honor. Griffith was largely revered as, in the words of
Orson Welles, “the premier genius of our medium.” Sadly, with the
passing of the “Griffith generation” (those directors from Allan Dwan
and King Vidor to Orson Welles and John Huston who were most directly
influenced by him) as well as close associates like Lillian Gish, there
were elements who emerged that were bent on destroying him. They have
succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, symbolized several years ago by
the Director’s Guild of America dumping their DWG lifetime achievement
award amidst a torrent of anti-Griffith invective justifying the move.
In his own country, Griffith is now largely remembered, not as the
visionary who transformed an art worldwide but merely as the “racist”
who allegedly poisoned American race relations. His detractors never
mention his criticism of the capitalist system in his films, his
championship of women, the poor, the Native Americans, his opposition to
war, the death penalty and (in a number of films) racism. Instead, they
have created a monster bearing no resemblance to the real individual.
In order to create this unlovely, fanciful portrait, they will not
hesitate to make up any story, circulate any outrageous claim. A number
of years ago, a writer named Homer Croy wrote a fictionalized account of
Griffith’s life in which he included an invented tale and character, a
black maid of Griffith’s who was allegedly so offended by “The Birth”
that she angrily departed his service. Although this incident never
took place nor did the woman even exist, the story of Cora the black
maid who stood up to the nefarious Griffith was related as fact in a
widely-seen PBS documentary on black filmmakers and has continued to
circulate ever since, despite my own efforts to point out the falsity of
this anecdote. I would be typing a far longer letter than this if I
were to point out the errors and outright lies that inevitably crop up
in articles, books, documentaries etc. intending to malign Griffith. In
fact, I have never yet seen an article slamming Griffith over “The
Birth” without its including at least one or two such falsifications.
The beleaguered few who still try to uphold his reputation are, by
contrast, usually much more accurate.
As to why people persist in this pattern of distortion instead of
relating the simple facts, I believe it is largely because they
subscribe to the same kind of “noble lie” advanced by the Straussian
neocons to justify such actions as the US conquest of Iraq. After all,
if the goal is the lofty one of creating a democratic Middle East or a
racially egalitarian society, why bother with a little thing like the
truth? So go ahead–repeat the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda–and that Griffith was the
main source of all of America’s racial problems and that his film led to
hundreds of people being killed. (I’ve done considerable research in
the papers of that period, and I’ve yet to uncover a single instance of
a showing of “The Birth” provoking a lynching or a deadly race riot.
The violence it caused was mainly in the form of scattered fist fights
and vandalism during the course of protest demonstrations.
Significantly, no one has ever sought reparations because of some
supposed harm done to them or their family because of the release of
“The Birth.”) However, if Griffith’s enemies have their way, the film
may finally lead to bloodshed–any individual publicly showing “The
Birth” in the US today runs the risk of being killed. Just last year,
when Charlie Lustman announced his intention of screening “The Birth”
for one night only at his Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, his life
was threatened and protestors spoke of burning down the theatre.
Thus, Griffith’s foes through their litany of errors and falsehoods
have succeeded in creating such a climate of fear that it is virtually
impossible now to have even a limited public screening of the film. And
they have so tarnished Griffith’s name that few people here are even
willing to discuss any of his work with the blending of sympathy and
objectivity that is essential to all valid aesthetic criticism. That in
discrediting the film’s depiction of history in favor of a rosy picture
of the Reconstruction era they are also trying to justify military
occupation is perhaps another reason for their persistence. In their
heart of hearts, they know “The Birth of a Nation” is essentially
truthful in its portrayal of the harshness of a civilian population
being subjected to military rule. The nagging feeling that many of
these critics have that Griffith’s film IS valid is one reason they are
driven to such frenzies. An outrageously foolish distortion of
historical reality would hardly arouse such fierce opposition for such a
long time. It is the truth which hurts–and the truth which must be
suppressed. There is no such thing as a “nice” military occupation–as
is being demonstrated once again in the US aggression in Iraq and was
also true in the defeated South in the 19th century.
Given my great respect for Canada and Canadians, I am sorry to see
that even a Canadian publication has signed on to the mountain of
misinformation that has destroyed D. W. Griffith’s reputation in his own
country. Griffith was very much a friend of Canada and in the mid-20s
made a speech in the Canadian parliament in which he urged them to
develop their own film industry independent of both Hollywood and
Britain. However, it appears that the use of a common language,
English, facilitates the spread of the anti-Griffith propaganda since it
is largely in the non-English-speaking world (countries like France and
Japan) that Griffith is now most highly regarded.
Perhaps this letter has been another exercise in futility on my part.
But in closing, I’m providing a link to my own online article on
Griffith which, I believe, places his achievements in the proper
perspective. The URL is: <http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>>
< <http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>> > It is part of my series
of articles on great silent film directors representing every inhabited
continent of the globe at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>>
< <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>> > I have also included
some
of Griffith’s anti-war statements in my online “pamphlet,” “Hollywood’s
Answer to War,” at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>>
< <http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>> >

Sincerely,
William M. Drew
PS. The photo used to accompany your article is from Griffith’s “Abraham
Lincoln,” not “The Birth of a Nation.” Yet another error.
=======================================================
17. Reg,
Thanks for this. And, by all means, carry on.
Not that you need me to tell you that…
best,
Geoff
—–Original Message—–
From: Reg Hartt
To: Pevere, Geoff
Sent: 1/11/2005 10:08 AM
Subject: one of a kind
I am. Thanks. I understood THE FOUR HOSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE to be the
only film that surpassed THE BIRTH at the box office. Had someone else
written a letter to the editor I would not have. We both know you are
not a member of any “conspiracy” or “cabal.” You have too much integrity
for that kind of silliness. The fact that you are your own person is why
I read you.

I once heard a priest deliver a sermon that was 100% anti-Christ. I
asked him, “Do you know what you just said?” He turned to a woman and
asked. “Did I say that?” “You could not have,” she said, “but it sounded
like you did.” Shortly after I got the heave from that church. I stopped
going to churches a lonng time ago.

For me, Griffith is the only way out. You have not done what I have
done. By that I mean not only the on the road presentations to packed
cinemas across the country at premium prices only to have them come to
an abrupt end because the fellow who ran Ottawa’s Towne Cinema slandered
you from coast to coast (John Tutt, of Waterloo’s Princess Cinema, was
told by this man, “I can’t believe you still do shows with Reg Hartt?”
John replied, “The audience loves him. His shows fill the theatre.”) nor
have you tried to work with Famous Players or Cineplex Odeon only to
discover if I do I will wind up owing more money than I make.

You have not researched a film like THE BIRTH, THE FOUR HORSEMEN, THE
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, METROPOLIS, etc., created a bitching score for it,
watched the current generation go nuts over the film (due to the music
which causes them to see the film in a new and exciting way) and then
seen your labours dismissed by the so-called intellegentsia (which is
rarely intelligent) all the time watching people like NFB vet Doug
Eliuk, Hanna Fisher and John Roberts (our Minister of Culture under
Trudeau) applaud your efforts.

You have not seen the smarmy, dismissive smiles on the faces of many in
the film community who say, “Well, if you go there, you have to listen
to him,” only to have the very great pleasure of hearing a Jane Jacobs,
a Tibetan Lama, a host of others say, “The best part of these programs
is what you bring to the table.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not bowed under by those who dismiss my work. I
am carried up by those who, without being told, recognize a value in
it..

No, you have not done that. But you have done things I do not know of
that have been equally frustrating for you.

I have always wanted to make films. I don’t want to make a film and, at
the last moment, have the money men say, “Well, you can not do that.” So
I chose the hard path.

The first time I was asked to speak in school extemporaneously I saw a
word coming out that carried the penalty of a trip to the office and the
strap. I accepted the penalty. To my surprise I did not have to pay it.

The next day a fellow who hated me used the same word. He got the strap.
I was furious. I asked the teacher why he was being punished and I had
not been. “Are you trying to make me look like teacher’s pet?!” I asked.

“I watched you choosing. I watched you accepting the responsibility of
your choice. You were right. He was just walking through the door you
opened.” I was told.

Griffith lifted movies up out of the Nickelodeon. There may well have
been other features before him. He was the first to charge $2 $200
today) a seat for a movie. He did that because he saw no other way to
quickly pay back the money his producers were hounding him for (the top
price for a live play was $2.50. He figured if they’d pay $2.50 for
George M. Cohan they’d pay $2 for him).

What people pay for movies today is the same as the 5cents they paid
yesterday. Garth Drabinsky singlehandedly took the movies back to where
they were before Griffith.

Anyway, live is short. I don’t care to rant at someone I care about (and
I am not ranting).

One time I showed Eisenstein’s TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (1927) with
a purely perfunctory music track. One fellow came up to me and said,
“You can do a better job than that.” I did not get angry with him
because he was right. At that moment he gave me the kick in the ass I
needed to do the job right. That week I went to work creating a new
score for the film. I was forced to stretch myself and it was a good
thing.

There is much in the piece you sent that I did not know (especially
about the KKK). Thanks.

You have no idea how much of a joy it is to open the paper and discover
you talking about things no one else in this country does. When we make
mistakes we give our enemies the ammunition they need to dismiss us.
Your worst mistake in the Griffith piece was crediting Edna Ferber for
Margaret Mitchell’s work because that is the one that most obviously
shows the error.

That is why it is important to be “on the beat.” Obviously, The Toronto
Film Society does not give a damn about being on the beat. Neither do
most folk in the film scene. But the kids who line up across the country
for my programs (and once in a while in the United States) walk out
saying, “I did not know this much fun was allowed.” (A kid actually said
that).

Here’s one I just got for Sunday’s KID DRACULA show:

hi Reg,
i was at the showing of Kid Dracula last night (which was
awesome by the way) and i just wanted to thank you for
sharing your thoughts with us when the movie was over.
besides being entertaining i thought you made a lot of very
interesting and valid points that really got me thinking. my
boyfriend and i were talking about many of the things you
said long after we left your place. although i throurouly
enjoyed the show, the highlight of the night was definately
your talk at the end. i have to tell you that i admire your
openess and honesty, but most of all your willingness to pass
on your knowledge and opinions to others. i was wondering if
you could email me the names of the three books you
mentioned are worth reading. i tried as hard as i could to
remember them, but my short term memory doesn’t tend to
be very reliable… especially when i’m stoned. i also wanted to
ask you what the lifetime membership to the Cineforum is all
about and if you play the same movies every sunday (i really
want to see Dark Side of Oz sometime soon). anyway, thanks
again for sharing your thoughts and i hope i get to hear more
of what you have to say sometime soon.
cheers,
Christina
March marks the 90th anniversary of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. I have been
acquiring Griffith titles (including the Biograph shorts few of which I
have seen). Would you like to join me in honouring this much maligned
man? Remember. THE BIRTH OF A NATION was an independent film. Griffith
is the father of that too. The only future I can see for the serious
film artist is the path Griffith walked. He “four-walled” (rented
outright) The Liberty Theatre for THE BIRTH. Chaplin four-walled THE
GEORGE M. COHAN THEATRE for CITY LIGHTS. Chaplin was told silent films
were old hat. No one wanted to show his film. He gambled on himself.
After a few weeks those who had turned their noses at his silent film
were begging to be let play it. The fellow who made BILLY JACK did the
same.

I once saw a dog get run over by a car. I went to where it ran to hide
(I was amazed it had not been killed as both the fronmt and rear wheels
passed over it) and offered it my hand, palm down, saying over and over,
softly, “It is okay.” The dog snapped its jaws shut on my hand (which I
expected it to do). I did not expect it to do that so gently there was
only a slight dent from one tooth on a finger. Then it stopped barking
and let me help it.

I doubt sincerely Norman Jewison could do that. I am one of a kind. So
are you. The kind we are one of is very rare. Life only makes one model
of each.

There is no such thing as an “hysterical person.” I saw, peripherally,
an old man get roughed up by two young men on Yonge street. I was on the
west side. He was on the east. He got angry. They passed by. No one but
myself saw what had happened. The sleepwalkers woke up to his rage
(”hysteria”) and got scared. A police car stopped. The old man was
roughly handled and shoved in the back of the car. I crossed the street
saying to one of the cops, “Can I talk with you? “Mind your own
business,” I was told. “I am minding my own business. I saw what
happened.” At that they listened, got the old man out of the police car,
apologized for handling him so roughly and took him into a coffee shop.
I learned the need to do that from Doris Mehegan (who ran THE SPACED OUT
LIBRARY, now THE JUDITH MERRIL COLLECTION).

Yesterday, at 5am, I heard the sound of someone being beaten in front of
this house. I woke up, stumbled to the window (without my glasses) and
at once called 911. It turned out to be the police catching a suspect.
It was a pretty horrendous sight. More horrendous was the emergency
operator’s dismissive voice as if them doing that somehow made it okay
to beat this man to a pulp. Every once in a while the veil lifts and we
see we are living in a police state (as all states are).–Reg
—– Original Message —–
From: Pevere, Geoff <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
To: ‘rhartt4363@rogers.com’ <<mailto:’rhartt4363@rogers.com’>>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 6:24 AM
Subject: FW: on maligning D. W. Griffith
Reg,
Thought you might be interested.
Geoff
—–Original Message—–
From: ReelDrew@aol.com <<mailto:ReelDrew@aol.com>>
To: gpevere@thestar.ca <<mailto:gpevere@thestar.ca>>
Sent: 1/11/2005 3:52 AM
Subject: on maligning D. W. Griffith

Dear Geoff Pevere,
In your zeal to denigrate D. W. Griffith and “The Birth of a Nation,”
you are guilty of several gross errors and untruths. As a film
historian who has for years attempted to bring recognition to Griffith’s
relevance as a great artist (among my publications is the 1986 book, “D.
W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’: Its Genesis and Its Vision”), I have had to
continually respond to those who, under the guise of presenting facts,
consistently perpetrate myths and outright falsehoods about the
director. The apparent objective is to unmask Griffith as an
evil-minded racist who caused great harm to American society, and in the
service of such an endeavor accuracy is of no concern whatever. I do
not believe these inaccuracies and misstatements are all accidental
slip-ups but represent a calculated effort on the part of these critics
to justify censorship and military occupation, things which they would
normally oppose After a lifetime of battling people such as yourself, I
am frankly sick and tired of the controversy and am presently debating
with myself whether I should even bother to respond to your reckless
disregard for the truth. Nevertheless, I will point out several gross
errors in your article:
1. Margaret Mitchell, not Edna Ferber, was the author of “Gone With
the Wind.” This bizarre inaccuracy has already been pointed out on the
newsgroup, alt.movies.silent. It seems to be typical of your approach
to scholarly research in general.
2. You state that the longest American film made prior to “The Birth
of a Nation” was a four-reel film by Griffith running 40 minutes
(presumably, you mean the 4-reel “Judith of Bethulia” which, at the
proper projection speed, runs about one hour). In fact, most of the
early American features of 1912, 1913 and 1914 were five or six reels in
length. The first full-length US feature, “Richard III” (1912), the
rediscovery of which received great publicity some years ago, was 5
reels in length; Helen Gardner’s “Clipart” (1912) was 6 reels. In 1914,
Mack Senate’s famous comedy feature, “Tile’s Punctured Romance,” was 6
reels, as was the “The Squaw Man,” co-directed by Oscar Capful and Cecil
B. demise. Other films demise directed that year, such as “The
Virginian,” were 5 reels long. In the case of Griffith, the four reels
of “Judith,” his final film for Biography (filmed in 1913, released in
1914), was a compromise between the studio’s insistence on shorter films
and his desire to expand with longer films. After that, Griffith left
Biography and, in partnership with the Aitken brothers, formed his own
company for the purpose of making feature films. In 1914, he directed
the following four features prior to “The Birth of a Nation”: “The
Battle of the Sexes” (5 reels), “The Escape” (7 reels), “Home, Sweet
Home” (6 reels), “The Avenging Conscience” (7-8 reels). I believe the
longest American feature released in 1914 may have been Selig’s version
of the famous Western story, “The Spoilers,” 9 reels in length or nearly
two hours running time at silent speed. 1914 also saw the release of
the first Canadian feature, “Evangeline,” produced by Bioscope at 5
reels. (It was also shown widely in the US.) I guess you simply didn’t
bother to look up the acknowledged facts in making your statement that a
four reel film was the longest American feature prior to “The Birth.”
3. You state that “The Birth” was the most popular film of the entire
silent era. This may be more excusable than the others, but it is still
something which has long been refuted by more scholarly studies. The
biggest box office hit of the whole silent period was King Vidor’s World
War I epic, “The Big Parade,” released in 1925. “The Birth” was the
single most popular American film of the 1910s, no question about that,
but the exaggerated claims of how much money it made and how many people
saw it stem from the Griffith company’s publicity department and the
film’s various distributors over the years. Initially, it was an
understandable way of attracting favorable publicity and increasing its
box office pull during its later revivals. More recently, however, it
has been used as a tool against Griffith and the film by those who, by
accepting the inflated numbers, now assign the film to the central
position in American race relations, in effect, making Griffith
responsible for the entire course (in a negative sense) of the black
experience in much of the 20th century.
4. This leads to your most egregious misstatement, one that is
absolutely unforgivable. You write that, in the year of 1915,
membership in the revived Klan in the state of Georgia alone suddenly
“ballooned to 8 million, and 22 Klan-related lynchings took place. This
is historic fact.” Er–not quite. In 1915, the total population of
Georgia was between two and three million people. 50 years later, the
state’s population was just under four million. It has only been in
recent years that Georgia’s population reached and then surpassed eight
million. As for the figures regarding the number of Klan members in
the US in the period beginning in 1915, membership grew slowly; it was
only in 1920 and 1921, following the breakdown of Progressivism in World
War I and the Red Scare, that the Klan emerged as a powerful
organization in the US. Even so, it never attained 8 million members
nationwide, much less in the state of Georgia. In 1921, it was
estimated that over 100,000 people had joined the Klan; at its peak of
popularity in the mid-20s, membership is estimated to have been 6
million for the entire country. After that, however, it quickly
declined after a series of scandals and widespread corruption brought
upon them well-merited scorn.
The attempt to blame the whole thing on Griffith, which, as the title
of your article suggests, seems to be your main point is excessively
misleading and simplistic. The immediate spark that brought the Klan
back into existence in Georgia was the sensational Leo Frank case which
raged in Georgia throughout 1913 and 1914, climaxing in his lynching in
1915. A Jew from the North, he had been falsely accused of raping and
murdering a young girl named Mary Phagan. Ironically, the real culprit
was a black man who falsely implicated Frank. Members or supporters of
Frank’s lynch mob, calling themselves the Friends of Mary Phagan, soon
started a new Ku Klux Klan, which first appeared in Georgia in November
of 1915. However, they were only a minor organization at that time.
Had the United States managed to stay out of involvement in World War I,
the new KKK would probably have gotten nowhere. What provided the shot
in the arm to turn them into a national phenomenon was the hatreds and
repressive climate spawned by World War I and the reaction to the
demands for greater equality by minorities and labor. The KKK rode the
wave of this reactionary mood for several years, not because of
Griffith’s film (which, in 1920, when the Klan began its first major
recruiting drive, had not been screened for several years) but because
of the right-wing climate of the time. However, most people these days,
instead of undertaking a sophisticated examination of the social,
economic and political strains that gave rise to the revived KKK, prefer
a simple demonization of D. W. Griffith. That Griffith had earlier
directed a film in 1911, “The Rose of Kentucky,” which depicted the Klan
as heavies, and that his pleas for tolerance in “Intolerance” (1916) and
“Broken Blossoms” (1919) were totally opposed to the kind of bigotry
embodied by the revived KKK is something his critics now choose to
forget.
The myths, exaggerations and total fabrications have had their effect
of erasing Griffith’s reputation in his own country. It was 30 years
ago that his centennial was widely observed here and a postage stamp
issued in his honor. Griffith was largely revered as, in the words of
Orson Welles, “the premier genius of our medium.” Sadly, with the
passing of the “Griffith generation” (those directors from Allan Dwan
and King Vidor to Orson Welles and John Huston who were most directly
influenced by him) as well as close associates like Lillian Gish, there
were elements who emerged that were bent on destroying him. They have
succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, symbolized several years ago by
the Director’s Guild of America dumping their DWG lifetime achievement
award amidst a torrent of anti-Griffith invective justifying the move.
In his own country, Griffith is now largely remembered, not as the
visionary who transformed an art worldwide but merely as the “racist”
who allegedly poisoned American race relations. His detractors never
mention his criticism of the capitalist system in his films, his
championship of women, the poor, the Native Americans, his opposition to
war, the death penalty and (in a number of films) racism. Instead, they
have created a monster bearing no resemblance to the real individual.
In order to create this unlovely, fanciful portrait, they will not
hesitate to make up any story, circulate any outrageous claim. A number
of years ago, a writer named Homer Croy wrote a fictionalized account of
Griffith’s life in which he included an invented tale and character, a
black maid of Griffith’s who was allegedly so offended by “The Birth”
that she angrily departed his service. Although this incident never
took place nor did the woman even exist, the story of Cora the black
maid who stood up to the nefarious Griffith was related as fact in a
widely-seen PBS documentary on black filmmakers and has continued to
circulate ever since, despite my own efforts to point out the falsity of
this anecdote. I would be typing a far longer letter than this if I
were to point out the errors and outright lies that inevitably crop up
in articles, books, documentaries etc. intending to malign Griffith. In
fact, I have never yet seen an article slamming Griffith over “The
Birth” without its including at least one or two such falsifications.
The beleaguered few who still try to uphold his reputation are, by
contrast, usually much more accurate.
As to why people persist in this pattern of distortion instead of
relating the simple facts, I believe it is largely because they
subscribe to the same kind of “noble lie” advanced by the Straussian
neocons to justify such actions as the US conquest of Iraq. After all,
if the goal is the lofty one of creating a democratic Middle East or a
racially egalitarian society, why bother with a little thing like the
truth? So go ahead–repeat the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction and was in league with Al Qaeda–and that Griffith was the
main source of all of America’s racial problems and that his film led to
hundreds of people being killed. (I’ve done considerable research in
the papers of that period, and I’ve yet to uncover a single instance of
a showing of “The Birth” provoking a lynching or a deadly race riot.
The violence it caused was mainly in the form of scattered fist fights
and vandalism during the course of protest demonstrations.
Significantly, no one has ever sought reparations because of some
supposed harm done to them or their family because of the release of
“The Birth.”) However, if Griffith’s enemies have their way, the film
may finally lead to bloodshed–any individual publicly showing “The
Birth” in the US today runs the risk of being killed. Just last year,
when Charlie Lustman announced his intention of screening “The Birth”
for one night only at his Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, his life
was threatened and protestors spoke of burning down the theatre.
Thus, Griffith’s foes through their litany of errors and falsehoods
have succeeded in creating such a climate of fear that it is virtually
impossible now to have even a limited public screening of the film. And
they have so tarnished Griffith’s name that few people here are even
willing to discuss any of his work with the blending of sympathy and
objectivity that is essential to all valid aesthetic criticism. That in
discrediting the film’s depiction of history in favor of a rosy picture
of the Reconstruction era they are also trying to justify military
occupation is perhaps another reason for their persistence. In their
heart of hearts, they know “The Birth of a Nation” is essentially
truthful in its portrayal of the harshness of a civilian population
being subjected to military rule. The nagging feeling that many of
these critics have that Griffith’s film IS valid is one reason they are
driven to such frenzies. An outrageously foolish distortion of
historical reality would hardly arouse such fierce opposition for such a
long time. It is the truth which hurts–and the truth which must be
suppressed. There is no such thing as a “nice” military occupation–as
is being demonstrated once again in the US aggression in Iraq and was
also true in the defeated South in the 19th century.
Given my great respect for Canada and Canadians, I am sorry to see
that even a Canadian publication has signed on to the mountain of
misinformation that has destroyed D. W. Griffith’s reputation in his own
country. Griffith was very much a friend of Canada and in the mid-20s
made a speech in the Canadian parliament in which he urged them to
develop their own film industry independent of both Hollywood and
Britain. However, it appears that the use of a common language,
English, facilitates the spread of the anti-Griffith propaganda since it
is largely in the non-English-speaking world (countries like France and
Japan) that Griffith is now most highly regarded.
Perhaps this letter has been another exercise in futility on my part.
But in closing, I’m providing a link to my own online article on
Griffith which, I believe, places his achievements in the proper
perspective. The URL is: <http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>>
< <http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html>> > It is part of my series
of articles on great silent film directors representing every inhabited
continent of the globe at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>>
< <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html>> > I have also included
some
of Griffith’s anti-war statements in my online “pamphlet,” “Hollywood’s
Answer to War,” at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>>
< <http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>
<<http://www.gildasattic.com/answer.html>> >

Sincerely,
William M. Drew
PS. The photo used to accompany your article is from Griffith’s “Abraham
Lincoln,” not “The Birth of a Nation.” Yet another error.
========================================================
18. Geoff Pevere forwarded your piece to me.
Below is a letter I sent to his paper. I was under the impression Rex Ingram’s FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE was the only film that surpassed THE BIRTH. If not, I stand corrected.
Your piece is very much appreciated. Don’t lose heart. I have known Geoff for nearly twenty years. He is one of the good guys. Converts make better friends (and allies) than do corpses.
I am planning a Griffith film festival in Toronto for March (90th Anniversary of THE BIRTH). Any input you’d care to make is welcome. It would be a pleasure to boost your book.–Reg Hartt
—– Original Message —–
From: Reg Hartt <mailto:rhartt4363@rogers.com>
To: lettertoed thestar <mailto:lettertoed@thestar.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 12:40 PM
Subject: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Geoff Pevere is a writer I enjoy reading. His piece on THE BIRTH OF A NATION in Saturday’s STAR was so full of errors however that I am forced to speak.
While it is true that THE BIRTH OF A NATION was the first film to be shown at The White House this was not because then President Woodrow Wilson was curious to see the film. He had been asked by The Reverend Thomas Dixon, whose book THE CLANSMAN the film was adapted from, to look at the picture. Wilson was in mourning for his first wife and did not want to be seen in public. For that reason and that reason alone the film was taken to the White House.
It began showing in Los Angeles on February 8 under the title THE CLANSMAN (this title was used throughout the film’s Los Angeles run). Wilson knew nothing of the film until he was contacted by Dixon. He agreed to see the film because long before at a moment he needed a hand Dixon’s was the one that reached out.
The White House screening took place on February 18, 1915. The film did not open to the public in New York until March 3, 1915.
After seeing the film it is reliably reported Wilson, an American historian and highly qualified to pass judgement, said, “It is like history written with Lightning. My only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” Later, when the feces hit the fan Wilson, ever a politician, retracted the remark. J. P. Tulmuty, Wilson’s chief public relations adviser, wrote, “The President was entirely unaware of the character of the play before it was presented, and has at no time expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old friend.”
In doing research on this film and the rest of Griffith’s work I obtained copies of the autobiographies of D. W. Griffith, cameramen Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown, and actressess Miriam Cooper and Lillian Gish as well as an extensive list of books devoted to Mr. Griffith, the best of which is Richard Shickel’s . The best exploration of the film remains Seymour Stern’s for FILM CULTURE in 1965.
Geoff tells us that in the decade between 1920 and 1930 Griffith had no commercial successes. The reverse is true. He had huge hits with WAY DOWN EAST and ORPHANS OF THE STORM (the two pictures he self-produced). The films he made for both Paramount Pictures and United Artists did respectable business. I was surprised to discover, reading Shickel’s book that Griffith withdrew from film making not because his pictures were not popular but because he got tired of producers mucking them up. This continues to frustrate serious film artists. Animation director Chuck Jones told me the most common thing he heard from producers was, spoken as one word, “That’snewtakeitout.”
THE BIRTH was not the most popular film of the silent era. Rex Ingram’s THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE holds that honour. I built up a score for that film from the Argentine Tango. Ed Jull, of the Toronto Film Society, told me when the TFS screened the film years before musicians in the audience complained the soundtrack was not “on the beat.” At a screening of THE FOUR HORSEMEN one man said to me, “You had that score on the beat all the way through. I am going to send Argentine people here.”
Geoff winds up crediting Edna Ferber with writing Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND. Mitchell described THE BIRTH as “the only honest film about the American Civil War and the Aftermath of Reconstruction.” Its honesty lies in showing that period from the point of view of the White South. The wounds from that time have still not healed. THE BIRTH OF A NATION, more clearly than any other film, shows why they exist.
THE STAR has not always been so unkind to Griffith and his film. Urjo Kareda, one of the most astute critics the paper enjoyed, wrote “D. W Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION is not only the oldest film in town but quite the best as well.”
There is so much misinformation (and deliberate slander) about Griffith and his work that it pains me to see Geoff write so sloppily about what is, after all, the most important film ever made.
One writer, Scott Simon, in his THE FILMS OF D. W. GRIFFITH, writes that whatever power the picture had to move an audience it does not have that power today.
Well, it all depends on how it is presented.
It is not generally known that however great the advances were that Griffith made in film technique with this film (and they are considerable) the true power of the film rose from the special music score Griffith had created for the picture. In 1980 I brought to Toronto Bernard B. Brown who played first violin in the orchestra which accompanied the film throughout its Los Angeles run. In 1927 Mr. Brown directed the sound recording on THE JAZZ SINGER. He got eleven Academy Awards and two Oscars for his work with film and film sound which he taught at UCLA when he retired from the film industry. After consulting with him I built a score for the film. When I screened the picture to The Toronto Film Society a few years back the audience went wild. University of Toronto Film Prof Barry Hayne came charging up to me shouting, “That score is brilliant!” The brilliance was Griffith’s.
I have also presented the film to hundreds of high school students whose teachers were astonished to see them so caught up in the picture’s power. The kids were more astute than the adults. They were amazed to find out how vulnerable we all are to mass media manipulation (which is why I continue to show the film).
David Wark Griffith singlehandedly lifted motion pictures up from shoe box theatres and transformed the medium into the art form of our time. Garth Drabinsky, whom Martin Knelman praises regularly, singlehandedly took it back to the shoeboxes. That $2 a seat audiences paidd to see this film would be $200 a seat today.
Griffith deserves better, way better, than the sophmoric and hysterical piece Geoff delivered up. Lillian Gish informed me that Griffith had no idea his film would lead to the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan and personally felt that no matter what it had achived it was not worth the price of a single lynching. It must have been a source of great horror and pain to see such diabolical fruit fall from his work.
As Richard Shickel writes, “We have new ways of seeing and and thinking and perhaps even being which literally did not exist until [Griffith] began his work. And began that chain of artistic invention which has enabled us to see the world through fresh eyes, in a new light.”
I will be presenting THE BIRTH OF A NATION again in a few weeks to mark the 90th anniversary of the picture. Come. See. Learn. Perhaps together we can get the movies out of the shoe boxes Drabinsky stuffed them into. And perhaps Geoff can get “on the beat.”–Reg Hartt (416-603-6643)
========================================================
19. Dear Reg Hartt,

Many thanks for your fascinating letter and your comments and recollections about scoring “The Birth of a Nation.” With respect to the preparation of the original score, I had heard that Griffith and Joseph Carl Breil (by the way, while it is often spelled “Briel,” the correct spelling is “Breil”) had some more or less friendly disputes about how to best present the music. (Lillian Gish in her book says the disagreement over the Klan call involved Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries,” although I know Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was also used). I had not heard before that Carli D. Elinor had taken part in a three-way discussion (with Griffith and Breil) over how the music should be utilized. Breil is best-known today for his work with Griffith, although he prepared musical scores for many other films, including such well-known imports as Sarah Bernhardt’s “Queen Elizabeth” and the Italian epic, “Cabiria.” As you may know, he also composed several operas but his work in that field was never as successful as his work in film scoring in which he was a major pioneer. Sadly, he died in early 1926, only in his mid-50s, and, like Elinor, is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery. While searching on the Internet, I found that his “Incidental Music from ‘The Birth of a Nation’” had been published by Chapelle, the music publishers. Also, the famous love theme from “Birth,” “The Perfect Song,” as you probably know, was issued as a popular song in sheet music. In this form, the lyrics for Breil’s music were by the well-known Canadian composer, Clarence Lucas. By a further irony of history, “The Perfect Song” was, in the early ’30s, adopted as the theme song of the “Amos N’ Andy” radio show, a borrowing which was noted in the black press of the time and added further to the controversy over “Amos N’ Andy” among some Afro-Americans in that era.
I had heard that live sound effects often accompanied showings of “The Birth” during its original run as well as a chorus who sang during certain scenes in the film. However, I had never heard before that a woman in the audience was employed to scream during Flora’s leap from the cliff. In my opinion, that was a terrible idea, highly inartistic and sensational to the point of bordering on camp, and totally unnecessary in what was supposed to be a silent film. I would hope that it was soon dropped or not widely used, and since I had never come across references to it in reviews of the period, I would think it was not extensively employed. I know, though, that they do include the scream in the 1930 sound reissue of “Birth,” along with voices of crowds and innumerable ear-splitting sound effects. So that would seem to be a holdover from the original presentation. By contrast, the use of sound effects in Griffith’s 1931 music and effects reissue of “Way Down East,” which he prepared just a few months later, is much more restrained and is not overburdened with ear-splitting noises. Obviously, if “Birth” had been presented in the United States with a live “benshi” performer providing narration and dialogue as was the custom in the Japanese silent cinema, such vocal effects as a scream would not be out of place. However, I have no problem with the sound of the music itself as recorded in the 1930 “Birth” reissue. Some have called it “tinny,” but James Agee, for one, enjoyed it and found it quite appropriate.
Regarding the musical arrangement of Breil’s score used in the Kino version, this is actually the most inadequate of the three versions I mentioned. There are mismatched cues, and in one instance, there is a small but memorable moment that is omitted from the print they used which is included in both the Brownlow Photoplay edition and the 1930 reissue. During the siege of Atlanta, the youngest Cameron son is killed and there is a close-shot of an old man holding his body. When I first saw that image in the 1930 reissue, it lingered with me, as it reminded me of Jean Valjean holding the unconscious Marius in “Les Miserables.” However, these few shots were apparently torn off in projection at the start of the reel in the print David Shepard used. It would have been a simple matter to splice in this footage from another source as Kevin Brownlow’s company did. This image is important because it is repeated later in the second half of the film, when an embittered Margaret, hesitant to accept Phil Stoneman’s love, thinks about her dead brother, killed in the battle for Atlanta. Failing to include the first use of the image in “Birth” robs its repetition in Part II of much of its poignancy and is typical of the rather slapdash approach to the music as well in the Kino edition. Part of the reason for the inadequacies of the Shepard version (musically and otherwise) is that it was basically a rush-job which they sought to get out in advance of the competing Brownlow release. I had heard that the Brownlow version is supposed to come out here on DVD sometime soon (it was released on VHS in Britain but was seen in the US only on TCM–because of the even greater controversy over the film these days, it doesn’t look like TCM will be airing it again). I suggest that you try to obtain copies of these other versions in order to arrive at a final judgment on the effectiveness of Breil’s score. The Photoplay version has the score arranged by the late John Lanchbery with some changes but substantially Breil’s original and performed by a full symphony orchestra. And, despite its technical imperfections, even the 1930 reissue, as I indicated, is musically much more effective, on the whole, than the Kino release. In this case, Breil’s score was revised for the synchronized rerelease by another well-known composer and arranger of the silent era, Louis F. Gottschalk, who had prepared the memorable scores for Griffith’s “Broken Blossoms” and “Orphans of the Storm.”
Since you asked me about Seymour Stern and why Scott Simon called him “notoriously unreliable,” bearing in mind that this is private correspondence, I will endeavor to give some idea of Stern based on what I have heard. I must state that I was never in contact with Stern although he was still living at the time I began working as a film historian. First of all, in Stern’s defense, he often did write with insight about Griffith’s films, including his use of mature, challenging themes. While, as I shall point out, I have problems with many of Stern’s opinions, he was capable of effectively analyzing Griffith’s social and political themes, analyses upon which I have drawn for my own writings on D. W. On one level, Stern did take film art seriously, championing, in addition to Griffith, Eisenstein and others. To his credit, Stern was one of the few American critics of his time to recognize the artistic importance of Abel Gance, who was often overlooked here until the “Napoleon” revival of the early 1980s. Stern appeared to be a close friend of Griffith at the end of D.W.’s life and often kept him company during Griffith’s last days living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel.
That much can be said for him. But on the other side, Stern, as Griffith’s grand-niece, Gerrie Griffith Reichard, put it to me in a 1976 phone call when Stern was still alive, was “nuts.” Simply stated, Stern was a paranoid schizophrenic who ended up hating Griffith as much as he loved him. In particular, many of the things he wrote about “The Birth of a Nation” in later years have ended up being used as ammunition against the film by others–even though Stern, claiming to be the guardian of Griffith’s reputation against all those who would diminish it, seemed to think he had thus also gained the exclusive right granted no other to brand the film as “racist” and a work which allegedly caused great harm to the black community. I admit I was a bit taken aback when, quoting Stern, you wrote rape is the main theme of the film. If you mean this in a metaphorical sense (war, conquest, imperialism, slavery all being in a sense forms of rape), then I thoroughly agree, as would Griffith. If, however, this is intended, as Stern apparently meant it to, to refer solely to black men raping white women, then while that was clearly the theme of Thomas Dixon’s original narrative, there is no evidence that Griffith ever consciously thought of it in quite those terms, however much he utilized Dixon’s story as the basis for his film. Indeed, Griffith was quite clear on what he thought the central theme of his film was. In a 1916 article that he wrote for “The Kine Year Book,” he stated: “‘The Birth of a Nation’ does not profess to be a sermon, but if, incidentally, it does something to show the real character of ‘glorious war’ it will, I think, have served at least one useful purpose.” I do not know if the opening title in the prints of the silent version of “Birth” we see today was included when it was initially shown in 1915 or first added to the 1921 reissue (it disappeared from the 1930 reissue), but it also sounds the anti-war theme: “If in this work we have conveyed to the mind the ravages of war to the end that WAR MAY BE HELD IN ABHORRENCE, this effort will not have been in vain.” Despite the controversy at the time, there were a number of observers in 1915 who also saw that as Griffith’s theme. For example, the Reverend Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst, a leading clergyman of the era, writing at a time when Americans were still hoping to stay out the war raging in Europe, stated: “Every lover of peace must experience a certain painful gratification that just at this time the ghastly horrors of carnage can be brought so closely home to the eye. . . .On Griffith’s screen we see the real thing. There is no magnificence, no glory, but horror, brutality, and stark butchery. It sickens with the sense of man’s inhumanity to man. It makes war despicable and devilish. It conveys an indelible lesson to all who have been bewitched by those who have decked out the naked hideousness of war with tinsel drapery.”
To be sure, rape is the inevitable by-product of war and military occupation and it is to be expected that rape would be at least be suggested in “The Birth of a Nation.” Just a few years back, the news was full of stories of the mass rape of women by local military forces in the Balkans. Currently, I suspect there may be quite a few instances of US soldiers raping Iraqi women, but, needless to say, that is something the media is hushing up. Obviously, one reason Iraqi women have, under the occupation, lost the social freedom they once had is because of the terrible fear in this conservative Middle Eastern society that, if they go out more, they will be sexually assaulted by American troops. And that is not an idle fear. For years, there have been some notorious, well-publicized instances of these kinds of crimes in Okinawa, for example, where there is a longtime US military presence. At the very beginning of the American occupation of Japan proper just after World War II, nearly 2,000 Japanese women were raped by US GIs. Of course, that is not the sort of thing you will read in sanitized accounts of the “benevolent” American occupiers, but it is a matter of historical record. That black soldiers occupying the defeated South may have sexually assaulted white women is entirely probable, and I do not regard Griffith as an evil racist trying to stir up contemporary lynch-mobs simply because he implied this was part of the ineluctable fruit of war and occupation. At the same time, there are those who have pointed out a definite ambiguity in Gus’ approach to Flora. I will send you one of those quotes in a subsequent e-mail, along with some rather unorthodox thoughts of my own on how the film could be interpreted or reinterpreted today.
But first, I must return to Seymour Stern. It is clear from his writings that he had some absolutely bizarre obsessions and a very peculiar approach to the subject of Griffith. Touted as Griffith’s authorized biographer, he announced that he would not discuss Griffith’s personal life at all (isn’t that what a biographer is supposed to do ever since the time of Plutarch?) but instead write a “biography” of Griffith’s films. However, even here his method was to interweave useful facts and analyses of the films with his various hobbyhorses, including his consuming hatred of religion. If there is anything worse than a religious fanatic, it is an anti-religious fanatic. Indeed, Stern’s hysterical, bigoted atheism had become for him a form of religion. Judging from what I know of his life, Stern as a young Jewish radical from New York had been a convert to the political religion of Marxism. Despite his early interest in, and enthusiasm for, Griffith, in the early ’30s–a time when Griffith really needed intellectual support if he had any hope of sustaining his career as a director–Stern’s no. 1 idol then was not Griffith but Eisenstein. Stern was then proclaiming in the pages of “Experimental Cinema” and elsewhere his devotion to the Russian master as the cinema’s principal genius, the artistic voice of a great social and political revolution that would transform the world. While Stern continued to express respect for Griffith’s achievements, he seems to have regarded him at that time as belonging to the past, a genius whose best days were behind him and who, for all the social criticism in his films, was not the progressive harbinger of the new order that Eisenstein was.
During the course of the ’30s, Stern seems to have experienced some sort of spiritual and political crisis. The rise of the Stalinist tyranny in the Soviet Union and Eisenstein’s fluctuating fortunes there combined with Stern’s own unhappy experiences working in the Hollywood industry apparently produced in him a profound disillusionment. As a result, he increasingly retreated to his study of Griffith, and with his own marginalized position in the film world became something of a soul mate of the aging, long-retired Griffith whom he had first known in the 1920s when, as a youth growing up near D.W.’s Mamaroneck, New York studio, he had witnessed the shooting of several films and even worked as an extra in “America.” When, in the late ’30s and early ’40s, some elements of the Communist left in the United States began attacking “The Birth” (partly in conjunction with their protest of the big new Civil War film, “Gone With the Wind”), Stern, now thoroughly estranged from the Stalinist forces then in charge of the US Communist Party, vigorously denounced them and defended Griffith against the charges of racism. Publicly, he continued to take this line in articles he wrote for mainstream publications like “Films in Review” well into the ’50s. But as ultimately became apparent in his monograph for the more “underground” “Film Culture,” he took a much harder line when writing for a more specialized audience. The 1965 “Film Culture” issue on “Birth” is, in fact, one of the most schizoid pieces of writing on film history I’ve ever read–as though its author was on some sort of medication or narcotic resulting in wildly different mood swings and completely contradictory viewpoints.
While, unlike so many others of his contemporaries, Stern did not abandon the organized left with which he became disillusioned for a new home on the right wing of the political spectrum, he tended to float in a lonely world of his own, unable to accomodate the culture of his country or indeed any society. The logic of some of his statements are sometimes so incredible that one rubs one’s eyes and wonders how anyone in his right mind could seriously believe such nonsense. (Except that Stern was not in his right mind.) To take one of his weirdest pronouncements, one that seems especially off the mark today in light of the contemporary US political climate, in the 1965 “Film Culture” issue, he declares that organized religion (the Church) in the United States, while not necessarily condoning homosexuality, prefers it, prefers anything to heterosexulity! Given how in the last few years, we in the United States have been subjected to an epidemic of homophobia launched by the religious right, indeed a deciding factor in the recent unhappy election, one can only shake one’s head in bewilderment that Stern could have written such nonsense in all seriousness.
And what of his overall approach to modern culture in general? Although Stern constantly railed against the puritanism of religion, he was himself highly puritanical in many of his attitudes. Like some backward neanderthal, as late as the 1960s, he expressed his hatred of jazz music and just about every popular music of the 20th century. The genius of such titans as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hart, among others, was totally lost on Stern. Although he included Charlie Chaplin in his pantheon of great filmmakers, he had nothing whatever to say about the other titans of silent comedy, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. But then, he clearly had very little sense of humor, judging from his writings. In fact, he despised the vast majority of films that were ever made, regarding them as so much commercial garbage. Even such masterpieces of the silent era as Vidor’s “The Crowd” and Murnau’s “Sunrise” he dismissed as “pseudo-artistic concoctions,” and claimed that “Greed” was Erich von Stroheim’s only notable achievement. He was equally scornful of Lewis Milestone’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the great early sound films of France’s Rene Clair. And even where Griffith was concerned, he saw his one period of true greatness as the years when he was an independent from 1913 to 1925. Stern claimed that, while a number of Griffith’s early Biographs were creatively important, the majority were commercial “junk.” He also dismissed Griffith’s last films from 1925 to 1931 as largely commercial ventures in which he had surrendered to the demands of the Hollywood film industry. That several of Griffith’s independent features were frankly lesser commercial ventures, probably more so than most of his usually impressive late films, was something he did not acknowledge in his effort to create an artificial barrier between D. W. and the Hollywood film industry. Stern even poured scorn on one of Griffith’s and the cinema’s greatest stars, Mary Pickford, whom he despised for some unknown (to me) reason and pointedly (and absurdly) omitted her from his list of the great Griffith actresses.
Except for his increasingly paranoid rantings, there was really nothing all that revolutionary or truly unconventional about Stern’s approach to cinema. Beyond mentioning Gance favorably in passing, he never wrote an extended piece on him that might have brought him greater recognition in the United States in those years. I haven’t found in his writings any evidence that Stern had any particular interest in feminism or women’s issues. He certainly never championed such great, long-overlooked pioneer women filmmakers as Lois Weber and Nell Shipman. Nor, while he traveled through Europe in the late ’20s and wrote about their filmmaking at that time, did he ever pay attention to the early cinemas of Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. To be sure, the majority of critics in his generation were equally myopic in their view of world cinema. But there were some contemporaries of Stern’s, notably Georges Sadoul and Jay Leyda, who did explore these lesser-known cinemas.
I realize that my criticism of Stern is very severe, especially since some of the more lucid passages he wrote did significantly increase my interest in, and appreciation of Griffith as an artist. But much of what Stern wrote also did Griffith harm, repeating as fact the unsubstantiated claims that “The Birth of a Nation” was responsible for a great deal of racial violence. As I wrote to Geoff Pevere, I’ve researched this issue for years in the documents of the time and have been unable to find any evidence that the bloodiest, most notorious incidents of racial conflict in those years (e.g., the 1917 East St. Louis race riots, the 1919 Chicago race riots, the 1921 attack by whites on the black community of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the 1923 lynchings in the small town of Rosewood, Florida) had anything whatever to do with “The Birth” which was not even being screened in those particular cities at the time of the bloodshed. To be sure, the Klan used occasions of the film’s screening over the years to distribute pamphlets propagandizing their organization. But that no more makes Griffith responsible for their actions than he is for the simultaneous actions of the new Soviet government which in the ’20s used showings of “Intolerance” to bolster support for the Bolsheviks. (A representative from the Soviets told Griffith that “Intolerance” “was a powerful influence . . . in cementing the feeling for the new government,” and that “you–unknown to yourself–were one of our biggest agents.”)
Much of what Stern wrote was, in fact, intellectually dishonest, even if in his mind it had come to be the reality. For example, when Lillian Gish cited a scene of black-white brotherhood in Griffith’s “The Greatest Thing in Life” (1918) as evidence that the director was not a racist, Stern immediately tried to refute her in print, saying the scene had no real significance and could hardly be evidence of Griffith’s tolerance. What Stern conveniently failed to mention was that “The Greatest Thing in Life” was one of Griffith’s few lost films and that he (Stern) had never, in fact, seen it. Therefore, he was trying to judge a film of which he had no first-hand knowledge in order to dispute the woman who had actually starred in it.
Added to that was Stern’s jumbled approach to research, evidence of his confused mind, as in his apparent inaccurate recollections of the musical score and his continual mixing up the intertitles in the silent version of “Birth” with the rewrtitten captions in the 1930 reissue. While I have little use for Scott Simon’s overall approach to Griffith, I think he does have a point when he disputes Stern. Stern repeatedly claimed he saw some truly horrific scenes in rare uncensored prints of “Birth,” including some shots supposedly showing close-ups of Gus, blood flowing from his mouth, as he was being castrated to death by the Klan. Simon seems to think this may be a product of Stern’s bad memory or feverish imagination since there does not seem to be any real contemporary evidence that such a grisly piece of footage was ever included in the film. To me, Stern’s making this and other claims is proof that part of him had indeed, however subconsciously, come to hate the artist whose legacy he felt he owned. I’ve seen it happen over and over again–people will become so possessive of something in film history they think they own that they will become insanely jealous of any potential rivals in the field and will become so consumed with their cherished subject that they will end up hating it. Stern’s obsession with Griffith did indeed have the effect of scaring off any other potential biographers for many years. Additionally, there was a much more responsible rival Griffith biographer with a similar background to Stern’s, Barnet Bravermann who had also first known Griffith in the ’20s and then been part of the same radical, left-wing film scene as Stern in the early ’30s. Bravermann continued his association with Griffith through the ’40s and appeared to be the one who would become D.W.’s biographer, to Stern’s jealous chagrin. But Stern hung around Griffith at the end and seems to have emerged as the top candidate for the role. In any case, however, Bravermann met an untimely end in 1954, leaving the field clear for his hated rival, Seymour Stern.
In his paranoid rantings and his ultimately lonely position in the world, Seymour Stern actually bears more than a passing resemblance to someone who was theoretically his opposite politically, Thomas Dixon, Jr. But like Stern, Dixon was a man consumed with malice, an explosive personality constantly looking for demons, fanatic in his sexual obsessions, and forever disillusioned with the world in which he lived. Whereas Stern would be eternally scarred by his disillusionment with the failure of the Russian Revolution and the radical social experiments of his time, Dixon’s disenchantment lay in his apprehensions that the progressive reform movements he initially supported were continually being undermined by the “lessers” they were intended to benefit, whether it was the “uppity” blacks, the suffragettes, the forces of organized labor. All threatened to undermine Dixon’s Eden in which the wiser white patriarchy would always maintain the guiding upper hand in the march towards ultimate progress. Confronted with the seemingly radical demands of the “ungrateful” masses, Dixon responded with a continual flow of insanely paranoid, hate-filled rants that animate his frenetic, melodramatic novels and plays. And much like Stern, Dixon, consumed with his inner and outer demons, ended up a lonely individual, totally at odds with the modern world and its new cultural forms such as jazz music.
In their ultimately damaging effect on Griffith’s reputation, Dixon and Stern have served as bookends. Emerging from his years of anonymous creativity at Biograph, Griffith suddenly found national fame as the director of “The Birth of a Nation.” But amidst the raging fires of controversy, much of it fuelled by Dixon’s own desire to incite racial passions, many people began to assume that Griffith’s motives and personality were the same as Dixon’s. To this day, you will read in some sources that they were close friends and that Griffith was enamoured with Dixon’s writings. In reality, Griffith merely saw Dixon’s crude melodrama as a hook on which to build something much greater and far more eloquent. It was not, in fact, his idea to film “The Clansman” in the first place, but that of a man who was a close friend of his, the critic and scenarist Frank E. Woods. Woods brought a screen treatment of “The Clansman” to Griffith and extolled its possibilities as the basis for a great film. Griffith and Woods worked closely together throughout the film, pruning the narrative of Dixon’s most explicitly racist passages (which could easily have been included in the intertitles) to produce an essentially tragic depiction of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Afterwards–well, the rest is the history which you well know. But Dixon, soon jealous of Griffith receiving the acclaim he felt he deserved and resentful that D. W. was never prone to acknowledge his contribution, may have had his own subconscious desire to injure Griffith by issuing a stream of blatantly racist pronouncements in 1915 which had the further effect of inflaming protest groups against the film and its director. In any event, while Griffith and Dixon were never open enemies, their relations quickly became strained. They were formally correct and polite over the years, but this only served to mask their cool personal feelings towards each other. By the time Dixon finally died in 1946, Griffith’s own life was starting to come apart. Cast adrift by the failure of his second marriage, he allowed someone who turned out to be another obsessive paranoid, Seymour Stern, to define him at the end much as Dixon had defined him at the beginning. That Stern would end up interpreting “Birth” in terms of Dixon’s vision rather than Griffith’s was perhaps inevitable given the essential similarity between Dixon and Stern as disillusioned paranoiacs tormented by their sexual obsessions. Neither Dixon nor Stern, however, could truly speak for Griffith. Griffith never shared Dixon’s fanatic belief in the reactionary myth of a godly white male patriarchy, having early in his life suffered at the hands of bullying children who came, in D. W.’s words, from “what is termed ‘good, clean American stock,’” “families of allegedly high moral principles and, of course, church-going people.” At the same time, precisely because these traumatic early experiences had given him a darker, more realistic picture of humanity, Griffith was also wary of the kind of radical utopianism that had fuelled Stern’s early dreams and whose disappointment caused his later disenchantment.
Stern’s passing in 1978, however, did not herald a new era of greater enthusiasm for Griffith. The explosion of interest in early cinema and Griffith in the late ’60s and the ’70s, while benefiting Griffith for a time (climaxing with his centenary), had pretty much left Stern behind. For all the valuable information contained in his “Film Culture” monograph, the inclusion of his personal ravings ultimately undermined his usefulness as a Griffith scholar, although, as I’ve indicated, a later generation of Griffith’s enemies would find ammunition for their attacks in some of what he wrote.
In the ’80s, Griffith would come under fire again from those among the politically correct who would seek to make the Father of the American Cinema the symbol of everything retrograde in American culture. And in the ’90s, with the passing of all those who had known and been directly influenced by him, the attacks became a deafening roar, climaxing in the 1999 decision of the Director’s Guild of America to publicly repudiate the D. W. Griffith Lifetime Achievement Award they had given since 1954 as a way of showing their disapproval of the pioneer filmmaker they now deemed nothing but a racist. And leading the attack, by the way, was none other than Richard Schickel. Although Schickel had produced a superficially correct biography of Griffith in 1984 and included some good material, supplied by a battery of researchers, he admitted even then he didn’t much like D. W. as a person. Now that the entire generation of directors to whom Griffith meant everything and with whom Schickel sought to ingratiate himself–now that they are all gone and a new generation has appeared, Schickel has freely given vent to his anti-Griffith prejudices, publicly assailing him in the press as a lousy director and “Birth” as an aesthetically ridiculous, inferior film. (Schickel has also attacked Lillian Gish in recent years and for good measure, John Ford as well. Apparently, Schickel had a lot of hostility he had kept bottled up for years and is on;y now letting out. Or perhaps he is simply being the rank opportunist that ensures continuing success in this society. The old king is dead! Long live the new sovereign! Out with the old, in with the new!) Whatever Schickel’s motives, his present denunciations of Griffith are part of a continuing pattern in which the great director has been repeatedly victimized by both paranoiacs and opportunists, all with various politicized agendas that have nothing to do with art and humanity and everything to do with their overwhelming desire to control.
With that, I will end this lengthy epistle for the time being and address other possible approaches to Griffith and “Birth” in a follow-up.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
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20. Mr. Drew,
Thank you for your thoughtful (and thought provoking) letter. There is much here that is both new and welcome.
Bernard B. Brown played first violin in the Los Angeles presentation of THE BIRTH. He was 16. He had been concert master for the combined high schools of Los Angeles. Among his duties were ordering sheet music for the schools. D. W. Griffith made extensive use of his talents.
He told an interesting story about Briel, Carli Elinor and Griffith. Griffith wanted to use Dukas’ SORCERER’S APPRENTICE with alterations as the Clan Call. Briel objected to altering the music. Carli Elinor said, “We are not doing a concert of Dukas. We are scoring a film.” Evidently Briel was not so progressive.
While he was here I projected the Claude Rains’ PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for Mr. Brown (who had not seen the film for years). After he said, “Now I know why Susanna Foster sends me Christmas cards every year.” He also told me he recorded Nelson Eddy standing next to some wood. When Eddy heard the playback he thought his voice had been dubbed. “Nelson, I just put a little ‘timbre’ in it,” Mr. Brown told him.
His greatest battle came with ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL (1939). Prior to that a single microphone was used to record the orchestra. He insisted on recording the bass, wood, winds, etc., separately and then mixing them. There was a huge fight. Finally, he told me, Leopold Stokowski said, “Let’s do it Brownie’s way. Let’s do it the right way. Let’s just get it done.” Note: “Let’s do it Brownie’s way” came first. When we want to introduce a new idea we have to be willing to throw a tantrum.
Next day Stokowski apologized on the set. Mr. Brown got his first Academy Award for that.
I, like you, used Seymour Stern’s FILM CULTURE issue on THE BIRTH as my primary source. Scott Simon in THE FILMS OF D. W. GRIFFITH describes Stern as a “notoriously unreliable Griffith scholar.” What do you know about this?
According to Mr. Brown when Mae Marsh dives of the cliff in the film they had a woman planted in the audience who would scream at the top of her lungs. They also used a sound effects crew for horses’ hooves, guns shot, cannonade, etc.
In creating a score for a Canadian audience I looked at things like the fact that THE AMERICAN ANTHEM to us is GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. The music carries an entirely different emotional resonance for us.
Right after Mr. Brown returned to California I was invited to show THE BIRTH to 50 students at an art college. I got there to discover 500 grade thirteen students had been bicycled in (no one thought to ask me first). I had not enough money for a hamburger and was further I reflected that these kids were the perfect audience to test the score with,
In the first half of the film they were restless. There is no narrative to grab them nor is there until the assassination of Lincoln. In my own presentations I point out to audiences that this is the epic style. In Kubrick’s space epic 2001 and in David Lean’s PASSAGE TO INDIA, to name just two, the first half of the film consists of a slew of seemingly loose threads which are then yanked together.
When an audience knows this in advance they can settle in and watch the film at a deeper level than they can not knowing it. This was not the case with this screening (to the students).
They watched the film but were not pulled in by it.
In the second half of the picture I had broken completely with Griffith/Briel and used Samuel Barber’s MEDEA (Suite) which, as it is about a mother devouring her children, thematically matched the South being devoured by the North. I did this because I could find nothing else to bridge a long section of the film. At this point I saw something remarkable happen. Every teenaged kid in the audience moved forward as a body in their seat. From that moment on the film held them in its spell. What it was, of course, was that that long piece of music (nearly 30 minutes) was able to grab them where the short, choppy clips had not.
I revised my thinking for the first half of the film. I no longer concerned myself with Mickey Mousing Griffith’s score so much as I did with capturing the spirit of his intention that the audience become one with what they were experiencing.
My key to scoring the film came from these words in Stern’s study of the film’s score, “The effect of Briel’s Negro-theme is that of a black penis pushing into the vagina of a white virgin.” Strong stuff but there we have it.
As luck would have it at that time two sound track recordings had become available on vinyl. One was Briel’s music for THE BIRTH. The second was Max Steiner’s score for KING KONG. I was able not only to hear what Briel had written but also to realize Steiner had drawn on the same source for his KONG jungle music.
So I scored the film from start to finish with the idea of rape as the main thrust. Yes, I know that is loaded but that is the theme of the picture, period.
Once I had the direction I could give the film an underlying unity. From start to finish we are moving towards a rape.
Again, bear in mind I am doing this in Canada. For us a lot of the civil war songs, though nice to hear, don’t carry the emotional charge they do in your country. As well, I want the audience to forget this film they are seeing was made ninety years ago. Once the lights go out I want them to feel this is a brand new film. That is why they are here. People come out to be astonished not to have their preconceptions confirmed. We have to surpass their expectations.
I have seen only the KINO version of THE BIRTH. The score is okay but lacks dramatic tension. When the rioting starts the music is too slow. I have a hard time believing that is what was used. It might have worked in 1915 but I doubt it. The Ride of The Klan is flat. The rhythms go against the spirit of the scene. They give the audience time to think which is the worst thing we can do. (I am playing it now as I write this). We have only to look at any cavalry riding to the rescue film to see and hear how this sequence should be played.
For the whole section from when the rioting begins until the Klan is seen in long shot I use the KONG “ABORIGINAL SACRIFICE DANCE” as it suggests rape and nothing but rape. And I play it LOUD. Today I also use the chase music from Steiner’s THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Even the RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES on this soundtrack sounds like a funeral march. I use a snatch of it clear and then overlay it with more dramatic music plus gun shots, screams, the whole nine yards. Then, when the ride begins to the cabin I overlay all that with the William Tell Overture. The main thing is to make the audience feel as if they are in the grip of the Niagara river and about to heard over the falls. By the time the Klan finally does arrive all the audience can says is, “THANK GOD!” At that point they have to have had a collective orgasm so that what remains is conversatioon after great sex.
The next big screening was for the august TORONTO FILM SOCIETY. Despite huge media coverage no one had come out for my event with Bernard B. Brown. I had invited two of the directors of the TFS Silent series out to meet him and they arranged for me to show THE BIRTH as part of their series.
I got there to find out the projectors they were using ran faster (at silent speed) and the tape recorder slower than my own. There was no way, I thought, this could be done. I could not walk out. I was stuck between the proverbial “rock and a hard place.”
Finally, I realized I could run parts of the film in silence and use the monitor speaker in the projection booth to synch up the music with the film.
I re-invented the thing in the process.
Three hours later the Director of the TFS silent series came charging into the booth shouting, “That score was brilliant! I especially admired your inspired use of silence.” Outside the auditorium was packed with people saying to each other, “I had no idea that is such a great film!” Forget about words like “powerful.” It was “great.” In other words, the picture did what a movie is supposed to do. They were on their feet applauding for a good five minutes.
Of course, I threw out all of my old tape scores for silent films and began redoing everything with an eye and an ear towards using silence.
I created a score for Fritz Lang’s NIBELUNGEN film using Wagner, Liszt and Sibellius (for the second half). Wagner ignored that part of the story). At one screening an elegant older woman came up to me and said, “I saw this film in Berlin when it first came out. This is not the music I heard with the film then. Did you do this?”
“Yes,” I told her. “PERFECT!” she said, snapping her fingers.
I’d like to read your book on INTOLERANCE.–Best, Reg Hartt
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21. Dear Reg Hartt,

Many, many thanks for your thoughtful letter and your excellent insights on “The Birth” etc., with which I largely agree.
Regarding my comments on Seymour Stern (which, by the way, I’ve never published before in any form or even, to the best of my recollection, written down in a letter), they are, as I said, privately expressed, and I don’t wish to seem highly judgmental. In fact, I can understand how a combination of pressures might have driven him to take some of the stands that I find unsettling. From my own experiences, film history is a highly competitive field. There are plenty of people who view it as their own private turf, which can breed an opposing possessiveness in the putative rival. Over the years, I have expressed myself strongly on a number of issues in film history besides Griffith. Also, when I began interviewing many of the great ladies of the silent and early sound eras, I had to deal with those historians who viewed me as a rival to their dominance, a circumstance that hampered me in my work at times. Added to that is the status of film history in general, which, after more than a century, is still not fully accepted by many as truly the record of a genuine art form but rather a convenient platform for people seeking to either create political controversy or indulge in scandalmongering (often of a highly inventive nature) about the past. In the case of Stern, I know, for example, that he often felt shut out by the US archival establishment, which, in those days, centered around New York’s Museum of Modern Art almost exclusively. Without being able to hear all sides of the story (including some presumably more neutral third parties), I would not at this point jump to any conclusions about how much blame should go around in this matter. I do know, however, speaking in general terms, that many film archivists have tended to view their collections almost as their own private domains, as though they were the high priests of some kind of elite cult rather than the custodians and preservers of material that should be rightfully shared with the public (including free-lance scholars such as Stern was). Perhaps having to confront this type of closed door policy from the Museum of Modern Art (still, by the way, one of the most restrictive archives with respect to the public), combined with political disillusionment and polarization and unhappy relations with the Hollywood studios, tended to push him over the edge. When he first appeared on the scene writing about cinema in 1926 (at the very early age of 18), Stern was quite precocious, seemingly in the forefront of those propounding theories about the new art of cinema (still all silent at that time). Griffith himself, in a Los Angeles Times interview in the fall of 1926 on the occasion of his return to the film capital after a seven year absence, specifically mentioned by name “young Seymour Stern” as one of those with unusual ideas about the uniqueness of the cinema art.
Fearing that, in my own case, I might eventually end up as marginalized as Stern, I would be very reluctant to dismiss him out of hand as simply crazy. I agree with you that, once you cut through the contradictions and what I see as “rantings,” Stern was capable of good insights into Griffith’s work. The point of my relating the problems and flaws in his work is that, for various reasons, one has to proceed with caution.
Some of what I see as his shortcomings are not uniquely his own but are part of the broader problem of film history as it emerged in his time. Stern was part of the generation in the United States and Europe which, during the 1930s, created film history as we know it. These include the writers Lewis Jacobs, Georges Sadoul (born 1904), Paul Rotha (born 1907), Seymour Stern (born 1908), Jay Leyda (born 1910), the team of Maurice Berdache and Robert Brasillach, and the archivists Iris Barry, Ernest Lindgren, and Henri Langlois. Collectively, they all deserve credit for attempting to document (and in the case of the archivists) preserve the films of the then-recent past. Before the 1930s, while there were some early efforts at recording film history, it tended to be on a fairly superficial level. (While I find the movie magazines and the newspapers of the 1910s and 1920s to be, on the whole, excellent sources of information about the early film artists and their work, they are more like reading lively diaries of what was happening at the time rather than any kind of deep analysis of the past.) And, until the creation of the first archives in Europe and the United States in the 1930s, nowhere in the world were there instittutions or structures specifically intended to preserve the films themselves. The advent of the pioneering film historians and archivists in the 1930s definitely marked a change for the better. But, while this would, of course, vary among individuals, there were widespread prejudices many of these people shared that have had negative consequences on subsequent interpretations of film history ever since.
Fundamentally, what I see as the overriding flaw of this first generation of cineastes is their establishment of an assumptive polarity between the European art film (regarded as the epitome of cinematic aesthetics) and the Hollywood entertainment film (viewed as technically slick but artistically and intellectually inferior), with the other great early cinematic traditions built around local production in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia roundly dismissed as inferior, purely commercial imitations of foreign models lacking even Hollywood’s technical finesse, much less Europe’s artistry. While Stern was more zealous than some others at that time in paying homage to Griffith as an artist, his writings are shot through with broad, sweeping condemnations of Hollywood cinema as a vast wasteland of commercialism. His attitude towards jazz and all of America’s glorious heritage of popular music in the first half of the 20th century as constituting nothing more than products of “the commercial amusement culture of the United States” merely carried to its “reductio ad absurdum” a variant of the Hollywood vs. Europe binary into another field and another art, one in which (fortunately) his attacks would carry no weight.
The stereotypes and generalizations of Hollywood cinema as little more than commercial vulgarity for the masses, which Stern, like other cinematic intellectuals of his time, was only too eager to propound would have grievous consequences in a number of instances. To take one example, most of Colleen Moore’s silent starring vehicles for First National were lost during the 1940s, even though copies of them were, for a time, in the Museum of Modern Art’s possession. Why? In large part, because the film intelligentsia of the period did not consider such works to be worthy of the serious attention that would favor preservation. Even Buster Keaton, who later became the pet of film intellectuals, was, for most of the 1940s, forced to eke out a living as a gag man, so little attention did he receive from historians at the time. And there were some directors, like Lois Weber and James Cruze, who ended up in even worse shape than Griffith, without any recognition or support from the leading cineastes of the day.
However, it was the early cinemas of the East and the South–what I call “the Third Wave” of silent film in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia–that suffered the most from this filmic imbalance, reinforced in these instances by even broader cultural stereotypes of these societies. Convinced of their utter inferiority to even the Hollywood product, the pioneer historians and archivists mainly ignored them without making any effort whatever to study them. When they deigned to mention them at all, it was to dismiss them with even broader generalizations than they applied to Hollywood films. Had they undertaken any serious study of these films, many more might have survived than is now the case. But far, far fewer of the silent films from these countries have survived than in the United States and Europe. No one individual in the film history field can be blamed for this neglect and certainly not Stern, although, in my opinion, he would have been a much more far-seeing cinephile had he, like Sadoul and Leyda, later investigated the histories of some of these other cinemas. But it is indicative of the limited outlook of the first generation of cineastes of which Stern, for all his eccentricities, was all too typical that he simplistically reduced all cinema to a tiny, elite handful of creative filmmakers amidst a vast swamp of commercialism. And, unlike some others, there is no evidence that he outgrew his limited focus in later years. Even though the West had discovered many of the major Japanese directors in the 1950s, Stern failed to list any of them as those he deemed in the 1960s to be among the handful of truly creative filmmakers. And with respect to American filmmakers, I note that Stern (whether deliberately or not) failed to include Buster Keaton in his 1965 list of the great pioneer filmmakers, even though Keaton by then was being lauded by most film intellectuals as one of the titans of film art. Perhaps, having ignored Keaton since he began writing about film in the 1920s, Stern was simply unwilling to acknowledge that he might have been guilty of an oversight.
I mention all this because, in many respects, I have felt the need to correct the conceptual flaws in the traditional interpretation of film history. In recent years, my focus has been increasingly on the early cinemas of Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia (I have now a fairly extensive collection of video copies of silents from these countries) and my effort to undertake a new approach to film history that will finally incorporate these cinemas into the cinematic mainstream. So I am more sensitive than ever as to how the standard view of world film history first took shape and why I feel we need a new, far more expansive model than the one that still exists.
My alternative approach to early cinema also has for some years placed a strong emphasis on the pioneer feminine stars as harbingers or agents of women’s modern emancipation. You are very accurate in pointing out that, as little as a century ago or less, women (in our supposedly enlightened Western society, not just that of the East, as the current crop of cultural missionaries and imperialists would have it) were regarded by many as little more than chattel. Also, that Griffith shows this and condemns it in his work. Griffith, in fact, unlike many men of his era, publicly came out in support of woman suffrage at a time when many women seeking the vote were chaining themselves or taking part in demonstrations in order to make their voices heard. One of the most moving experiences I have ever had in a cinema was some years ago in the 1990s when “Way Down East” was screened at a nearby arthouse theatre with whose silent film programming I was then involved. When Lillian Gish as Anna Moore denounced sexism and the double standard, the emotional reaction (in the film’s favor) was almost visceral in its intensity. Members of the audience, particularly women, not only applauded but actually shouted out their agreement with the sentiments being expressed by Gish and Griffith in the film!
Unfortunately, you will not find any mention of this in the standard approach to Griffith in the United States today. Increasingly since the 1980s, he has been symbolically blacklisted from our culture, and most here now know him (if they know him at all) as little more than “that racist” who also played some early role in inventing film techniques like the close-up. While it makes painful reading, under separate cover, I’ll be sending you copies of letters I have e-mailed to Tom Mayer, a documentarian in the US and admirer of Griffith who is currently trying to complete a documentary on DWG’s years working in New York. These letters of mine include links to articles, some of them quite negative, detailing the extent to which Griffith has been demonized in the United States.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
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22. To receive such a lengthy and well thought out piece of correspondence from soneone I do not know is a very great honour. It is going to take me a bit of time to digest this material.
I see the theme of rape as what happens whenever we stop thinking for ourselves and surrender to an ideology. Rape of the mind. Stern saw it as pure and simple physical rape. Anyone who doubts the horrors unleashed by war should go and see HOTEL RAWANDA.
The quote re Breil’s Negro-theme is on pg. 118 of Stern’s FILM CULTURE piece. I met his son briefly in Ottawa at a presentation I did of Lang’s METROPOLIS for which, again, I had created a score. It was a very interesting night. Stern’s son was just an ancilary to it. The fellow who brought me there had never done a show before. He id everything wrong. I figured it was his first time and let a lot ride.
Before he introduced me to the audience (pretty large crowd) he spent an hour selling memberships in his series. I know when an audience has been driven around the bend so when he told them I was going to speak I was about to say, “Why don’t we let the film speak for itself,” when a fellow shouted, “I did not come here to hear you,” to which I replied, “Well, I just came all the way here to speak.”
That led to a near riot. People got up and went to the programmer who began flashing the house lights off and on. I continued. We lost about ten people. When the evening ended the entire audience (over two hundred) lined up to speak to me on the way out. Each person said, “The film was good. It was more important to meet you.” One of those people identified himself as Stern’s son. I would like to have beeen able to hear more from him but the situation did not allow for that.
It was the first and last show I did with that person.
Have a good day and thanks much for your letter. I am now endeavouring to spell Briel Breil.–Best, Reg Hartt
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23. Dear Reg,

The following letter of mine to Tom Mayer is dated September 6, 2003, in response to an e-mail from him renewing our correspondence of two years before (I realize there will probably be a lot of repetition of points I have made in this area, but you may also find some fresh information or documentation in these communications):

Dear Tom Mayer,

Many thanks for your letter and your kind comments on my e-mail of over two years ago on D. W. Griffith. I am certainly glad to hear you are continuing to work on the Griffith-Biograph-NY documentary as it will be a valuable contribution to the documentation of silent film history. Regarding the Mary Pickford documentary, all I can say is it’s still in the works. At least, the last I heard they were committed to it but were looking for a grant to bring it to fruition. This year, I have contributed to two new documentaries on silent stars: the A&E biography of Clara Bow which aired some months ago (I provided an audio interview I did with Esther Ralston on Clara) and a just-completed documentary on Olive Thomas for which I have been a consultant.
I’m glad you found my letter of use. Since I currently don’t have access to my files of two years ago (they’re stored on another computer), you will pardon me if at times in this new letter I repeat any of the points I made about D. W. Griffith in the old one. But with respect to your question about whether I have undertaken any new Griffith project since then, the answer is not really. I did publish online last year an article on Griffith I had written the year before for an encyclopedia. The article is part of my series, Great Pioneers of the Cinema, at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/pioneers.html> The series includes great silent film directors from every inhabited continent on earth. I am thinking of republishing on the Internet an article on Griffith that had originally appeared on the apparently now-defunct Silents Majority website. The article takes for its springboard a refutation of a fictional incident that has been passed off as true in a highly-acclaimed documentary on early black filmmakers. The sole reason for their inclusion of this material was an effort to discredit him. Because this particular myth continues to be circulated as fact, I think it is necessary to keep my own refutation available to the public.
Since you asked me whether I thought the public and critical climate towards Griffith had changed since we last corresponded in July of 2001–well, I find that a very intriguing question. On the surface, I would definitely have to say that, as far as I know, nothing has changed. The DGA has not restored the award honoring his name. Nor have Red Grooms’ sculptures of Griffith directing Lillian Gish in “Way Down East” that once graced a university campus in Kentucky been reerected to my knowledge. Although this controversy did not attain the national notoriety of the DGA affair two years later, it certainly presaged it. It was a local hot topic in the Cincinnati-northern Kentucky area and was a cover story in a Cincinnati magazine at the time. Some black groups on this campus agitated in 1997 or so that the sculptures honoring the “racist” Griffith be removed. To his credit, civil rights leader Julian Bond opposed the removal. But the PC crowd had their way and the sculptures are, I believe, still in storage somewhere. Note that the sculptures were not commemorating “The Birth of a Nation” or indeed any Griffith film with racial content but instead the proto-feminist “Way Down East.” It was an example of the guilt-by-association that has clouded just about anything connected with DWG in the decade that has passed since the death of Lillian Gish placed the director in the realm of past history and hence more vulnerable to sustained attack. From the controversy over the sculptures, it was only a step to the more systematic trashing of DWG by the DGA. And since there have been no dramatic new developments here affecting Griffith’s reputation–no national revival of one of his films, no new documentary–not much seems to have changed. To be sure, the Kino Griffith releases have now come out as a set on DVD. And while one can certainly say that this keeps his name alive, I would not call the migration of these presentations and restorations from VHS to DVD to be the kind of startling new circumstance that would radically alter people’s preexisting perceptions of DWG, whether positive or negative.
Obviously, the nation (and the world) has drastically changed since you wrote me two summers ago due to 9/11 and all the developments since. And one would think that events of this magnitude would have some longterm effects on the reputation of a filmmaker who was deeply sensitive to the ravages of war and its aftermath, the use of ideological intolerance to justify a monopoly of power, the rapacity of capitalism. In “Intolerance,” Griffith had even put on the screen a dramatic depiction of the first conquest of Iraq by a superpower. Perhaps beneath the surface or over a protracted period of time, the consequences of the 9/11 seismic shift will cause a dramatic reevaluation of Griffith and even a new approach to the interpretation of the Reconstruction era. The romanticized treatment of the post-Civil War period by several generations of revisionist historians as a noble experiment in racial democracy has had a particularly adverse effect on DWG’s reputation in recent years. But the current experiences in which exalted official claims that US military might and postwar occupation are intended to promote radically democratic change in Iraq and Afghanistan while corporate interests reap a windfall–there might eventually emerge a group of historians who see a parallel between this and the older (and in my view) more accurate interpretation of Reconstruction as a time in which similarly exalted slogans of democratic intent masked the unsavory realities of the military occupation of the defeated South and the invasion of the profiteering carpetbaggers. A return to favor of the traditional interpretation of Reconstruction might clearly benefit Griffith who has long suffered from the notion that his opposition to the colonial subjugation of his region in the aftermath of the Civil War is analogous to mid-20th century Southern racists’ objection to peaceful, legal efforts at societal change in the civil rights era. But if there has been any fresh effort to reevaluate the Reconstruction era as America’s first quagmire in the light of current events, I am unaware of them as of now. Most self-styled liberals and radicals continue to cling to the illusion that the politicians of the Reconstruction era were selfless idealists genuinely committed to radical change. And for their part, both the libertarians and the Confederate flag wavers who might have at least offered some alternative view of the Reconstruction era seem to be far more interested in demonizing Abraham Lincoln and justifying secession than in presenting a reevaluation of the post-Civil War period.
As I’ve indicated, I don’t see any immediate shift in the current view of DWG in the US despite the dramatic new historic developments. Indeed, quite the contrary, I can relate a rather frustrating example of this right at the time of the 9/11 attacks. There is a newsgroup devoted to silent films to which I sometimes contribute. Just after the WTC disaster, some posters there were making ominous comments about “The Birth of a Nation” and its supposedly evil effects on US society, including its (and Griffith’s) alleged responsibility for the revival of the KKK in the 20th century. Partly under the strain of the horrifying event that had just taken place and all the potentially frightening consequences, this line of discussion seemed to me especially insensitive and foolish. We still didn’t know how many thousands of people might be dead and what the outcome would be–and here were people seriously writing as if the production of “The Birth of a Nation” were the most horrific circumstance in US history! I made my objections clear and pointed out (as I have before) that, despite their exploitation of “Birth” screenings for publicity purposes, the fundamental reason for the widespread revival of the KKK in the 1920s lay in the climate of national intolerance that emerged in the wake of the US involvement in World War I and the post-war Red Scare. Had the US stayed out of World War I and the Progressive Era continued, the KKK would never have gotten beyond a few members in Georgia. To me, the moral lesson should be, not that it is dangerous to society to grant freedom of expression to an individual artist such as Griffith, but to consider the consequences of a mass, government-directed action like US involvement in World War I. Perhaps our participation in the war was necessary and justified, perhaps not, but any discussion of its worth should acknowledge the conflict’s responsibility in reviving the Klan. Given the action we as a nation were about to undertake in response to the 9/11 attacks, I felt then that what we should be arguing from history with respect to the Klan’s revival was the responsibility for World War I and the Red Scare for its emergence, not another scapegoating of DWG.
Part of the reason for the decline in Griffith’s reputation since its posthumous high at the time of his centenary in 1975 surely includes the passing of the generation (or generations) that knew and loved his work when it was new–not only those, like Blanche Sweet and Lillian Gish, who worked with him, but someone like Orson Welles who experienced DWG’s work as a child and who, as an adult and extremely influential filmmaker, continually lauded Griffith as the world’s greatest film artist. Had Welles been alive in 1999 when the DGA made their decision to remove the award, he would surely have protested and been an eloquent spokesman in the American cinema for DWG. Given Welles’s long commitment to the civil rights movement, he might even have been able to act as a sort of mediator between those for whom the battle against racism was the no. 1 issue and those whose allegiances and interests were primarily aesthetic. But although Welles died as comparatively recently as 1985, the Griffith controversy in his lifetime was still something of a fringe issue. By that, I mean it had continued to be, first and foremost, a debate over one film, “The Birth of a Nation,” not something that had morphed into a vast public controversy over DWG’s total standing as an artist and human being. It is instructive to remember that, while much of the American public opinion of the 1970s was certainly sensitive to civil rights issues, there was no public outcry, no criticism by the NAACP or any other organization as far as I know of Griffith being honored by the US government itself with a special commemorative stamp. How could the situation have deteriorated in the 1990s to such an extent that a private, non-governmental film industry organization was forced to withdraw its honor for the director and that a college campus removed sculptures commemorating Griffith directing another film entirely? After all, it’s not as though some “shocking” new facts about DWG’s life had come to light since the ’70s. But as I’ve said, the people for whom Griffith was such a vital presence had pretty much died out by the ’90s. There was, at the same time, the rise of a political correctness movement that was much stronger than anything seen in the ’90s, a tendency that fed on the growing polarization between the ultra-left and the extreme right in American life. In such a climate, there has been little tolerance for the kind of rational intellectual discussion that might be more sympthetic towards Griffith.
These are just some of my random thoughts about the current reputation of DWG at this time. I think the documentary you are working on can certainly help to focus on other aspects of Griffith’s life and work in contrast to the present-day obsession with “The Birth of a Nation.” Indeed, so programmed are many commentators to see everything through the “lens” of the Civil War-Reconstruction film that they repeatedly misinterpret other films of his to make it appear that they reflect the same bias and racism they find in “The Birth.” It used to be that most people recognized “Broken Blossoms” as a strong indictment of Western racist attitudes towards Asians. But, as I’ve found through searching the Internet, you will find any number of comments claiming that it is really racist and anti-Asian, not only because of the use of a white player (Richard Barthelmess) in the Chinese role but also because he doesn’t marry the 15-year-old white girl or even have sex with her! Instead, he dies as does she. Therefore, Griffith must once again be revealing his horror of miscegenation. (Can anyone explain to me how an audience, even today, would accept as positive sexual relations in a film between an adult male of any race and a minor? I think we still have laws against it, and I’m unaware of people of any political faction arguing they should be changed.) In truth, this is just another case of commentators trying to fit all of Griffith into their Procrustean view of his work. If any other director’s name were attached to the credits of “Broken Blossoms” (e.g., Frank Borzage or Clarence Brown), I think most of these same critics would view the film very differently and would accept it as the strong indictment of racism that it in fact is. Interestingly, the film was a great success with Japanese audiences and continues to be a great favorite with cinephiles in Japan, all of whom are Asian, after all. But in the United States, critics who view DWG as an unregenerate racist because of “The Birth” are unable to accept that he was capable of condemning racism in other films.
I have fought many battles in Griffith’s behalf over the years including my first book, “D. W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance:’ Its Genesis and Its Vision,” published in 1986 by McFarland and recently reprinted by them in a softcover edition. While I have hardly changed my interpretation of Griffith, I realize that in the present climate in the US it sometimes seems as though I’ve been hitting my head against a brick wall. In any case, I’ve been devoting more of my time and research to exploring the silent cinema beyond Hollywood and Europe–the rich flowering of the early cinema in the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Latin America. The standard histories of world cinema have for far too long ignored this heritage of silent cinema, something I am attempting to correct through my articles. As an example, an article I wrote last year on the importance of the Middle East’s film heritage and the need to preserve it was published last year by Arab Celebs, a Cairo-based website, at:
<http://www.arab-celebs.com/article.asp?ID=15> And the website which hosts my Great Pioneers of the Cinema series also includes other articles of mine on international film history at: <http://www.gildasattic.com/Bluebook.html>
Many thanks again for your letter. There is much more I could say about Griffith–many more ideas I have on the subject–but as this e-mail has already become another long one, I will reserve those thoughts for another time.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you again soon. And if it’s not too much trouble, would it be possible for you to forward to me a copy of the letter I e-mailed you in 2001? As I said, it’s on the files of an older, now damaged computer so I can’t access it at the present time.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
On November 12, 2003, after Tom Mayer sent me a print-out of my e-mail of two years before, I wrote him as follows concerning honors accorded Griffith in his native country:

Dear Tom Mayer,

I received my old e-mail of more than two years ago. Thank you for sending it to me. It helps to have what I wrote then before me, so I can avoid, as far as possible, repeating what I had already written!
One thing I’m interested in determining with respect to D. W. Griffith’s current status is to what extent he has been (or continues to be) commemorated or honored in the US. I’ve already discussed the 1998 removal of the Red Grooms sculptures from the Northern Kentucky University campus and, of course, the infamous 1999 DGA decision to drop the DWG awards which they had been giving out since the 1950s. In both cases, these measures were taken in response to deliberate political pressure. The DGA award was actually one of two such honors given in the director’s name. The other was the D. W. Griffith Awards annually given by the National Board of Review beginning in 1979. I’ve been trying to find out if it is still being given by the NBR. Judging from the following article at: <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40485,00.html>, the award was dropped several years before the DGA abandoned it. Searching through Google, I’ve found that the NBR was giving out their Griffith awards through 1994. But, according to a former NBR member quoted in this article, they changed the name around that time. There is no indication here that the change, if it was indeed made then, was for specific political reasons. The man quoted in the article seemed to think that the NBR board members in more recent years just don’t know much about film history, as he found out when he suggested that, if they were going to change it, they ought to call it the Lumiere. And the person he spoke to at NBR didn’t seem to know who the Lumieres were! Still, given the mounting attacks on DWG that seemed to get only worse after Lillian Gish’s death in early 1993, I have to wonder if some sort of political pressure to remove DWG’s name might have been going on as early as the mid-1990s. (Unless, of course, the information in this article is inaccurate. But in my Google search, I’ve been unable to find any evidence that the NBR’s Griffith awards were given out after the mid-1990s.) In any case, if NBR’s Griffith award was a thing of the past by the end of the 1990s, that would then mean that the DGA had removed the only existing honor being given in his name.
As for other commemorations or honors for Griffith, I believe there is still a David Wark Griffith Middle School in Los Angeles, despite some attempts by local NAACP members to have the name changed. (The school was named after him in the 1950s, as I recall.) As far as museums or markers, there is a commemorative plaque in San Fernando on the site where he shot many of his early Biograph westerns, which is also near the ranch he owned for a number of years. The plaque was dedicated in 1959 at a ceremony attended by both Blanche Sweet and Mae Marsh. I don’t think it’s very visible today from what I hear, although it’s still there. The National Register of Historic Sites includes the D. W. Griffith House in La Grange, Kentucky, although it is still privately owned, I think. It was actually his sister Ruth’s house, but for much of the 1930s, Griffith lived there in semi-retirement in the years following the release of his final film, “The Struggle.” Of course, his grave with a marker put up by the DGA in 1950 is there. (As a particularly depressing example of how DWG has been hounded even in death, there is a site called Find a Grave (<http://www.findagrave.com/>), in which you can leave symbolic flowers and messages for illustrious departed people. Almost always, the messages for great figures of the silent and early sound era are warm and appreciative. Griffith was the only one I could find where some people were leaving negative messages about the alleged harm he had done with his “racism.” I haven’t looked at it lately, so I don’t know if that is still the case. Mercifully, as far as I know, no one has vandalized his actual grave or sprayed it with graffiti.)
Part of the problem, of course, with respect to erecting museums in DWG’s honor has nothing to do with political correctness but rather with the facts of his life and the toll taken by time on buildings that were central to his career. Griffith never built a lavish home or estate of his own that might have been turned into a museum or monument after his death. Most of his adult life, when not working on his films at the studio, he lived in a succession of hotels. The three main studios with which he was associated have all disappeared. The Biograph studio on 11 E. 14th St. in NYC was torn down many decades ago. During the 1975 centenary, a commemorative plaque was placed on the apartment building standing on the site, but, as Blanche Sweet related to me, it was stolen shortly thereafter, reputedly by junkies. Griffith’s Fine Arts Studio in Hollywood that he had from 1914 to 1919 has also long since disappeared. And unless you have found some information to the contrary, it’s my understanding that most of the Mamaroneck studio buildings have also vanished. Over twenty years ago, I corresponded with an organization in Los Angeles that was trying to save Clune’s (Philharmonic) Auditorium where most of his films from 1914 to 1919 had their West Coast premiere. I thought, as did the preservationists, that, due to its centrality to his life and work, it could house a special museum exhibit permanently commemorating Griffith’s life and work. Unfortunately, it was the same old Hollywood story–the preservationists soon lost the battle to the wrecking ball, so perhaps the one ideal remaining site for a DWG monument in the 1980s vanished.
That, at least, is my present knowledge regarding the extent to which Griffith is formally honored today. I am not aware of any streets or parks named after him (Los Angeles’ Griffith Park was named after another individual well before DWG even first arrived in Hollywood with the Biograph company), and obviously, there are no cities or towns named after him. Given all that has happened to his reputation since the public controversies of the late 1990s resulting in the removal of existing honors, there appears to be even less incentive to widen his commemoration beyond the paltry formal recognition he had received in the years separating his 1948 passing from that of Lillian Gish in 1993.
Many thanks again. I will be looking forward to more news and information regarding your documentary and, of course, to seeing it when it is completed. With respect to the points I raised in this e-mail, do you have any more information about existing Griffith honors or memorials? For example, do you have any contacts in New York that might be able to shed light on whether the National Board of Review’s Griffith awards were indeed terminated during the latter part of the 1990s? If so, is there any reason to think that politics had anything to do with it?: Also, in the course of your research on your documentary, have you been able to find any site or existing building associated with Griffith’s work in New York State that conceivably might some day be turned into a museum honoring the man and his work?

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

(More of my Griffith correspondence to follow)
==================================================================
24. Regarding the musical arrangement of Breil’s score used in the Kino version, this is actually the most inadequate of the three versions I mentioned. There are mismatched cues, and in one instance, there is a small but memorable moment that is omitted from the print they used which is included in both the Brownlow Photoplay edition and the 1930 reissue. During the siege of Atlanta, the youngest Cameron son is killed and there is a close-shot of an old man holding his body. When I first saw that image in the 1930 reissue, it lingered with me, as it reminded me of Jean Valjean holding the unconscious Marius in “Les Miserables.” However, these few shots were apparently torn off in projection at the start of the reel in the print David Shepard used. It would have been a simple matter to splice in this footage from another source as Kevin Brownlow’s company did. This image is important because it is repeated later in the second half of the film, when an embittered Margaret, hesitant to accept Phil Stoneman’s love, thinks about her dead brother, killed in the battle for Atlanta. Failing to include the first use of the image in “Birth” robs its repetition in Part II of much of its poignancy and is typical of the rather slapdash approach to the music as well in the Kino edition.
Wow! What a letter.
I agree with you completely about the missing scene. It was not in my 16mm print altho it was in the 8mm print (BLACKHAWK) I first had. I spliced it back in as I know Griffith would want the death of the second Cameron son documented on screen. So few film academics and film “restorers” have dramatic sense.
The Stern info is fantastic. I have met quite a few film fan(atic)s as well.
THE STAR opted not to publish my letter. I did not think they would.
The public record is a cesspool of misinformation. “Journalistic integrity” is an oxymoron. I learned that thirty years ago when I first got interviewed.
A friend and I sat in a room with a musician friend while he was being interviewed. He was glad we were witnesses as nothing that later appeared in print had anything to do with what actually transpired.
One thing that became clear when I first began to acquire 8mm and then 16mm prints of films I had read about was how often the writers seemed to be writing about some other movie.
According to Bernard B. Brown the scream was used in all performances. I tried it once but dropped it.
<http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/pubblicazioni/griffithiana/griffithiana_31-45.html>
Info on Bernard B. Brown below:
<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=216770&mod=films>
<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=216770&mod=awards>
<http://awards.fennec.org/b/brown_bernard_b.html>
<http://theoscarsite.com/whoswho/brown_b.htm>
<http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5228/ohmaag.html> Interesting that Brown is not credited on this for the nomination. I have hard copy print in my files. Nor is he mentioned in anything on the Jolson Jazz Singer. I have hard copy in my files.
Best, Reg Hartt
===============================================================
25. have had a chance to digest your letter. Thanks for your thoughtfulness.
I am much indebted to you for the insight into Seymour Stern. As someone who has been called “nuts” by more than a few people over the years I can view the use of that term to describe give me a clearer picture of the person who uses it than of the person it is used to describe. There are no “crazy” people. There are a lot of wounded people. Communists and socialists are people who lie to themselves. When the lie becomes clear they find themselves like Paul Robeson found himself when he saw clearly his Russian dream was worse than his American nightmare.
The one idea I am in debt to Seymour Stern to for is that the issue in the film is not race but class.
Many Blacks like to foist the lie that only they were slaves. Of course no one who “has taken the time to find the truth for themselves” believes that.
In Amos Elon’s study of Meyer Rothschild and his time, FOUNDER, we read “In 1776 the enterprising Wilhelm (of Austria) sold a first contingent of Hessian soldiers to his English cousin, George III, for cannon fodder in the American war. In this profitable business Wilhelm was following the example of his ancestors under whose reign the sale of soldiers had become a major export industry. The soldiers were not mercenaries, in any accepted sense of that word. they were ruthlessly pressed into service, on the Prussian model, from the poor peasantry.” (pg. 74). The same holds true of my Irish ancestors. The same holds true of the Blacks as any study of the roots of slavery reveals.
The struggle has always been a class and economic struggle.
“At the same time, there are those who have pointed out a definite ambiguity in Gus’ approach to Flora.”
Gus is the rough counterpart of the smoother Silas Lynch. In his mind he may not think he wants to rape Flora but that is pure self-deception. He does not know her, has not tried to know her, can only see her as on object of his lust. He sees nothing wrong with his desire for Flora (and there is nothing wrong with it) but fails to realize that she has the right to say no. This has nothing to do with his color and everything to do with his class, economic background, self-pity and the anger that finds it root in that self-pity. Any Black woman would also be off limits unless he used more grace in approaching her than he uses with Flora. (Dixon is guilty of the same self-pity). The same is true of Silas Lynch who has clearly seen that Lillian Gish is not interested in him but has chosen wilfully to ignore that.
Silas Lynch can not go beyond seeing women as chattel which, at that time, they were. My mother’s mother was given in marriage by her farmer father to a blacksmith. It was, at the moment, a good business idea but then the car wrecked that trade. Their sons became mechanics. My Mother was Church of England. My father’s family, Roman Catholic. A union between faiths was as condemned as one between races.
If you have ever been “blinded by desire” for a man or a woman then you know where Gus and Silas Lynch are coming from. The more impossible to achieve is the object of our desire the more incongrous becomes our self-deception. We learn a lot who have survived that both in terms of our own lying self-desire and of having been the object of that self-desire.
The big problem, however, is that these people are at heart cardboard cut outs used to illustrate Dixon’s thesis.
When I show THE BIRTH OF A NATION (or any film) I am aware of the need to astonish the audience, to surpass their expectations. When the picture starts I expect the audience to be hostile towards it. My job is to overcome that hostility, to put the film across with so much panache that the audience forgets this is an old film, forgets the pressing problems of their day and gets caught up in the spell of the story and cheers the Klan at the end. If I succeeed at that they will come to more of my programs. If I do not they will not. That is why they are there. Read David Mamet’s book TRUE AND FALSE.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION did not compel anyone to do anything they would not already do. Its affect on the mass public was no different that that of any other “hit” movie except today film makers have learned to use that influence to sell merchandise. The boys who rode around in KKK outfits are no diiferent than the boys who buy STAR WARS light sabers.
I did a web search on THE BIRTH. Many feel free to unleash a virulence when it comes to this film that is as evil as the most rabid bigotry.
To understand THE BIRTH we have to be familiar with the source material from which it is derived. Years ago I read Dixon’s THE CLANSMAN. I discovered that
Griffith certainly transformed a sow’s ear into a silk purse. His adaptation of the book and the play shows he was a man of discernment aware that the mass public should not be treated to a portrait of the period as filled with yellow journalism as is Dixon’s work.
I had a hard time understanding conventional American (and Canadian) Christianity (which is really anti-Christianity) until I read Booker T. Washington’s UP FROM SLAVERY. Washington tells of how he was terrified to learn how to read and write because so many who came before him, once they had achieved literacy, claimed to be “struck by the lightning of the Lord.” They would lie on the ground for several days (usually three) and then announce they had been given a private audience with God.
As those to whom they “preached” knew nothing they were easily able to gull the public.
This still happens. The thousands who fall victim to television preachers would not do so if they’d take the time to think for them self and study the WORD they say they believe. The road is broad and many are found on it that leads to self-destruction. They search THE BIBLE for the “word of God” ignoring that Moses (Deuteronomy 30: 14, teaches, “The word of God is in your heart and on your tounge.” In plain English, Instead of looking for answers, THINK FOR YOUR SELF.
Every year millions of students get gulled in the halls of academia. They accept, without question as it sounds right, the “word” as it is delivered to them (most often by teachers who decide they want to learn about a subject and so give a course on it. You have no idea how many of these I have sat in on where the teacher has been hopelessly out of their depth and the students are getting fed material their teacher pulled the night before from a book). The students do not care. They just want a degree so they can get a job.
I taped the Golden Globe Awards Sunday so I could watch it Monday. The best moment, for me, came when Jamie Fox described playing the piano with Ray Charles, missing a note and having Charles say to him, “Why did you do that? Take the time to do it right.”
This simple truth, “take the time to do it right” is what separates those willing to whore themselves for success and those who achieve what the world calls success as a by-product of their life. The former say, “it’s only a comic book, movie, cheap novel or…..” The other take their work seriously as a result of which both life and work have what the Romans called gravitas.
Griffith is among those.
Ellis Marsalis told his sons Branford, Wynton and Delfeayo, “Most teachers would say you should go to school to get your degree to have something to fall back on. Aside from being a huge lie, it also creates a very high level of mediocrity, because nobody who really believes that is going to take the leap of faith that is required to be a serious artist.”
We find the same idea expressed in different words by Plato: “He who without the Muses’ madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.”
What happened in the American South after the Civil War is no different than what is happening now in Iraq. High faluting motives have been used to subjugate a people. We now know the information we were given was false. It all comes down to “taking the time to do things right.” That is something damn few people do.
These are rambling thoughts I have had since going over your very fertile letter.–Reg Hartt
===============================================================
26.
Dear Regg,

On June 3, 2004, in response to Tom Mayer writing me and asking if I thought there might be a centennial commemoration of the beginning of DWG’s work as a director, I wrote the following:

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your letter. As you suggest, it is really too early now to know to what extent there will be in 2008 a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of D. W. Griffith’s directorial debut. The closest parallel I could think of would be the celebrations last year of the centenary of Edwin S. Porter’s “The Great Train Robbery.” And Porter’s film is much better known, at least by name, to the average person than “The Adventures of Dollie” or indeed, any of the first films directed by DWG in 1908. It’s not until 1909 that we find Griffith films, especially “The Lonely Villa” and “A Corner in Wheat,” that have long been a staple of standard film history classes.
Unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned many times before, the constant negative publicity over “The Birth of a Nation” has, during the last 12 years or so, tended to overshadow everything else in Griffith’s career. There was a fresh reminder of this on the online discussion group, alt.movies.silent, when a recent article about the lack of a marker commemorating Griffith’s work at Biograph was posted there. The link to this sorry piece is at: <http://www.nyunews.com/artsandentertainment/film/7453.html> While the author of this article argues for a plaque on the site of the Biograph studio in NYC (he was clearly unaware that such a marker WAS placed there in 1975 but was stolen, possibly, Blanche Sweet told me, by junkies), he goes on at length about Griffith’s “execrable” views. Typically, there is no reference to anything progressive or positive in DWG’s vast body of work. He even characterizes Griffith as an “anti-Semite,” presumably because of the later Klan’s ideology. (Of course, he is unaware that Griffith promoted the screen careers of Carmel Myers and Joseph Schildkraut and tried for years to interest Hollywood in starring his friend, actress Molly Picon.) The posting of this article on alt.movies.silent had the usual effect. As they do every few weeks, it seems, Griffith-haters wrote tirades blaming DWG for just about all the racism in the USA, while the director’s admirers were put on the defensive. One disgusted pro-Griffith poster correctly pointed out that it’s gotten so bad now that people can’t even mention a film like “Sally of the Sawdust” without stating in the same breath that it was directed by that evil racist, D. W. Griffith.
Despite this, I certainly hope that some kind of centennial commemoration can be launched in 2008. After all, the next significant Griffith centenary would be in 2015, the 100th anniversary of “The Birth of a Nation,” which presumably would see another outpouring of negative commentary. A Biograph centennial which focused on his work as a whole might, at least to some extent, alleviate the expected negativity of the later anniversary.
Given all the decades that I have seen this controversy only worsen, a situation I had attempted to improve with my own writings on the subject, I have concluded sadly that it’s very much an uphill struggle for reasons that are not all that difficult to see. Griffith’s positive reputation in the United States was very much tied, not only to the persistent support of stars who worked for him (Mary Pickford, Mae Marsh, Richard Barthelmess, Neil Hamilton, Mae Marsh, Blanche Sweet, and, of course, Lillian and Dorothy Gish) and praised him in later years, but to the whole vast family of directors who were directly inspired him, both here and abroad. The directors of the “Griffith generation,” from Abel Gance and Allan Dwan (who debuted in 1911) to Orson Welles and John Huston (who began directing in 1941 about the time of DWG’s last token work in Hollywood on “One Million B.C.”), continually lauded Griffith as the great genius and artistic visionary who taught them (and the world) how to make films. Nowhere in their comments on Griffith did these illustrious filmmakers ever discuss or bring up the “Birth” controversy. Clearly, they must have felt that the quality and influence of Griffith’s work as a whole was what was important.
However, as was, of course, inevitable, this generation of filmmakers had all died by the early 1990s. While, to be sure, there are later directors who are particular admirers of Griffith (notably, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Harrington, Werner Herzog), it is probably true that for the majority of filmmakers today, Griffith has been at best a major pioneer name familiar to all for his technical innovations but not an artist in whom they find inspiration. And in the absence of a vital experience with the artist as a living presence, it has been all too easy for PC types, in and out of the industry, to fill the absence of a wider knowledge and enthusiasm by reducing Griffith to the demonized creator of “The Birth of a Nation.”
I find no justice in any of this, no vindication of anything other than the power to scapegoat those with less power and money. And compared to other illustrious names of the past, the fate of Griffith in the last few years is all too indicative of the importance of money and progeny in this allegedly egalitarian society–and how devastating to a reputation can be their lack. While Griffith was not absolutely destitute in his last years nor was he totally forgotten by Hollywood at the end of his life (for example, he was a presenter at the 1946 Academy Awards two years before his death), still, by the standards of what is deemed success in American society, he was relatively poor. And, of course, he did not have any children or grandchildren. This meant that, in the decades after his death, he was most dependent on his co-workers and the filmmakers directly inspired by him to keep his name alive. There was no Griffith foundation, no Griffith mansion, no Griffith heirs to promote his name to a later generation. And when those who were most closely affected by him themselves died out, there was a void soon filled by his detractors who have succeeded in turning him into merely a stereotyped symbol of American racism. To be sure, “The Birth” had always been controversial but, until the 1990s, it had not overwhelmed everything else Griffith in the US. Such Griffith admirers as Chaplin, Welles, John Huston, John Ford, Frank Capra, King Vidor, and Jean Renoir were all known for having strong social consciences. It certainly would have been fascinating to find out their individual opinions of the “Birth” controversy, but, to the best of my knowledge, none of them ever commented on it. Apparently, at least in film industry circles, it remained a somewhat marginal issue until the 1990s and the passing of the “Griffith generation.”
The imbalance between how Griffith has been treated compared to others of his contemporaries in different fields is illustrative of what I mean. The DGA Griffith Award rescinded in 1999 and the Red Grooms sculptures of DWG directing Lillian Gish in “Way Down East” removed from a college campus the year before are among the few public honors there were to Griffith in this country–and now they’re gone. By contrast, even though Woodrow Wilson’s racial views are often attacked (including, of course, his praise for “The Birth”), there are innumerable schools and organizations across the land bearing his name. I know of no effort, organized or otherwise, to take those honors away by renaming the institutions. Yet another great Progressive leader of Griffith’s era who frequently expressed attitudes that would be considered racist is Theodore Roosevelt. Again, no one has tried to rescind the many public honors to him.
It is not, however, only powerful presidents and political figures with heirs who lead a more charmed posthumous life than Griffith. Perhaps an even more striking example of the double standard involves one of the leading literary figures of Griffith’s generation. Jack London was certainly, in my opinion, one of our greatest novelists–and also, in many respects, one of our biggest racists. London often warned against miscegenation while championing the supremacy of the white race. It was London who, in reporting on Jack Johnson’s pugilistic victory, called for a Great White Hope to defeat the black boxer. On the Internet, I have found some virulently racist, neo-Nazi-type sites which have reprinted some of London’s more racist writings and endorsed the views in them, needless to say. Ironically, London’s racism coexisted with his simultaneous Progressive support of radical causes and the exploited working class. Again, however, there are many honors to the writer, including, of course, Jack London Square in his native Oakland. And while there are, to be sure, those who criticize him for these views, he has many impassioned defenders who are not racists, who genuinely appreciate him as a great author. They often point out that he actually did write stories sympathetic to Native Americans and Polynesians who were exploited by the whites. All of which demonstrates that London was a complex figure who should not be reduced to a caricatured redneck. Alas, by contrast, what defenders Griffith still has are much feebler by comparison, definitely thrown on the ropes by a savagely aggressive and successful campaign of demonization. But, of course, London has heirs and left an impressive estate. Griffith, working in a new art, was unable to perpetuate his name and reputation beyond museums in his last years of inactivity.
Griffith’s attackers over and over repeat the charge that “The Birth of a Nation” led to a number of lynchings. I have read many reports in both the white and the black press of that era as well as more recently-researched accounts of these incidents–and I have yet to run across a single documented case of a white lynch mob being inflamed by a screening of “The Birth” to carry out their deadly work. All I ever read is the generalized accusation that the film did all this harm with no specifics being cited. Really, it reminds me of the people who are convinced that Iraq in 2003 had weapons of mass destruction and that its government was behind the 9/11 attacks. Those who keep insisting that “Birth” led to a new wave of lynchings seem to be so convinced, even though they have yet to furnish a single concrete bit of evidence or proof. Lynchings in those years invariably arose, not from the showing of Griffith’s movie, but typically when a white person made an accusation that they (or someone close to them) had been attacked by a black, usually a male. Often egged on by local newspapers and politicians, the white mobs would then grab the black person who had been accused, whether he was guilty or not, and then murder him in a most cruel and barbarous manner. Underlying the racist attitudes that fuelled these violent actions was the ever-present spectre of economic depression. For example, it has been demonstrated that the drop in the cotton market tended to inflame racial antagonisms by whites towards blacks and thus increase the number of lynchings. Available statistics on lynchings do not support those who persist in blaming them on Griffith’s film. In fact, within two years of the film’s first release, there was actually a decline in the number of lynchings. In any case, the most absolutely vicious period for these atrocities was in the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century. Unfortunately for the mythologizers, these murders were perpetrated by mobs of whites who obviously had never seen the as yet-unmade “Birth” film. But the Griffith-bashers would seem to have people believe that when Ol’ Hooknose Dave unleashed his terrible film on an unsuspecting public, he immediately corrupted them with his inflammatory images. They have yet to explain why, if his film did have that effect, has no one come forward in the black community with details on how their relative was killed by a mob inflamed by seeing “The Birth of a Nation?”
The allegation that the film all by its ownsome led to the revival of the KKK is a related charge that has too long been swallowed whole-hog. The immediate reason for the Klan’s local revival in Georgia in 1915 arose from the sensational Mary Phagan case, which climaxed in Leo Frank’s lynching and the rebirth of the KKK. Those who had inflamed the mob against Frank were at that time calling for a new Klan to deal with “alien” elements. To be sure, the Klan did over the years try to capitalize on screenings of “The Birth” by handing out literature drawing a comparison between the Klan in the film and their own organization. But what led to the sudden increase in the new Klan’s membership in 1920 (at a time when “Birth” had not been widely seen for several years–the film’s first big postwar revival was in the following year of 1921) was the unrelenting, regressive three-year campaign in the United States against elements deemed “un-American.” First targeted by politicians and other civic leaders were Germans and pacifists in 1917-18; in 1919, the new enemies were Bolsheviks, labor unions, racial minorities and anyone demanding greater equality as a fulfillment of the ideals promised during the war. Starting in 1920, the revived KKK became the most visible symbol of the new postwar reaction and would have materialized in some form, even if “The Birth” had never been made. It is certainly regrettable that they found Griffith’s film to their liking, no matter how much distance he tried to put between the film and this outfit. But, as the examples of Jack London being used by today’s racists to advance their ideology prove, this kind of exploitation is sadly inevitable and constantly going on. Also, it should be mentioned that, at the very same time the KKK was attempting to exploit “The Birth” in the US, the new revolutionary government of the Soviet Union was using “Intolerance” to build support for their system. Indeed, a Soviet emissary in the ’20s told Griffith that “Intolerance,” shown across their vast land, “was a powerful influence. . .in cementing the feeling for the new goverment” and that “you–unknown to yourself–were one of our biggest agents.” So it can hardly be argued that Griffith’s art in his own time was only utilized by one political faction, such as is always implied by those who persist in linking DWG solely to the revived KKK. Griffith’s films were, no doubt, utilized by people with a wide variety of political beliefs. But Griffith was no more the cause of the 1920s KKK’s revival than he was the cause of the Bolshevik rule over Russia. Large historical movements are the result of many cumulative incidents and social currents. To ascribe them all to the influence of one film is incredibly shallow and simplistic.
Getting back to what I said about the importance of money in our society, if there were a Griffith foundation and a concomitant number of public honors to the director, you can be sure such an organization would have plenty of spokespeople and researchers refuting the allegations that his film was at the center of 20th century racism in America. They would point out the facts that I have cited above and, while they would not silence all of his critics, they would release a steady stream of positive publicity on Griffith, including research papers and documentaries they would commission and fund, so that his name would continue to be widely honored here. Needless to say, they would draw public attention to all of his work and cite the many films in which he pleaded for tolerance and opposed racism. But because Griffith, as I said, died relatively poor with no direct descendants, he has become an easy target for those who seek to scapegoat him as a symbol for all that’s wrong in American race relations. You don’t have to protest or rename a vast number of well-endowed foundations and institutions across the country to denigrate his role in history–you just have to take away the DGA Award and the Red Grooms sculptures to sully his name.
Those who continue to defend the DGA’s decision endlessly repeat the tired bromide that the Guild removed DWG’s name because some day they will be honoring an Afro-American director with a lifetime achievement award–and how would he feel to get an honor with Griffith’s name attached? Nearly five years have passed since the DGA dishonored Griffith–and they have yet to give their lifetime achievement award to a black filmmaker. Of course, the DGA, being a private organization, has a right to do whatever in hell they want–but I, as a film historian, equally have a right to express my opinion of their logic. What if this were carried over to other situations? Should the city of Oakland, with its large minority population, remove Jack London’s name from the square because some people living in the city might be offended by the great writer’s racial views? Or, taking this back to the film world, should the Golden Globes drop their honor of the other great directorial founding father of Hollywood, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, because some day they will be giving it to an Asian-American filmmaker who might be upset about “The Cheat?” But there again, thankfully, that will never happen because DeMille, unlike Griffith, has heirs and I believe a foundation bearing his name. The DGA, in my opinion, should have retained the award in Griffith’s name and should the day have come when they offered it to a black filmmaker and he refused to accept it because of DWG’s name being attached–well, then you deal with the problem when it comes up instead of launching a preemptive cultural war against Griffith.
As it is now, any attempt to honor DWG today will be met with cries of “why commemorate a man whose film caused a wave of lynchings?” We badly need a scholarly analysis that will discuss this issue and I believe, based on my own research, reveal it to be an urban legend, possibly influenced by memories of earlier stage performances of Thomas Dixon’s play, “The Clansman.” A cruder, more blatantly racist work but in some ways more powerful in its immediate effect on audiences, Dixon’s play did inflame at least one or two incidents of deadly racist violence back in 1906, and it is possible that somewhere along the line, the collective memory has confused this with the later reception of “The Birth of a Nation.” However, from all that I have read so far, any violence attending showings of the film in the silent era was limited to fistfights and random acts of vandalism growing out of demonstrations against the film. And if I am mistaken and there is definite proof that Griffith’s film fueled several lynchings–well, as depressing as it would be to learn this, at least, there would then be definite proof instead of the emotional, unsubstantiated, generalized charges that are now routinely made year after year.
However, I rather doubt that a study of this kind would reveal this, and is perhaps the reason the Griffith-bashers have refrained from putting their inflammatory allegations to the test. They would then have to confront the basic nature of American society at that time instead of continually heaping abuse on one gifted individual of whom they are apparently jealous. They might also have to recognize that Griffith sought to transform and transcend Dixon’s novel and play from a mere racial diatribe about Reconstruction into a broader picture of the miseries caused by war. But so effective has been the campaign against the film in recent years that the fact it was about a real, honest-to-God war has been all but ignored in these jeremiads. One would think Griffith had created an indictment of a peaceful affirmative action program instead of what is perhaps the cinema’s first extended portrayal of war and the enduring scars it leaves behind. In effect, the controversialists have succeeded in erasing from public consciousness the first part of the film depicting the Civil War so that the second part now seems to arise in an entirely different context–that of the racial melodrama which so preoccupied Dixon’s writings.
I’m sorry to seem so negative, but, based on my many years of fighting this battle (more years than Griffith spent directing!), I thought I should lay out in even more detail some of my feelings about the difficulty one encounters in honoring Griffith today, given the hysterical but effective PC campaign against him. And since you asked me about getting funding to complete your documentary, I felt I should further explain why the atmosphere has become so poisonous here now. Is the name of Griffith included in the title of your documentary? Actually, as an example of the ultimate hypocrisy of the anti-Griffith campaign today, it is, ironically, still possible to commemorate Griffith through a “back-door” approach that downplays or omits his name. For example, there are the two replicas in recent years in Hollywood of the Babylon set from “Intolerance”–one at Disney’s California Adventure park and the other, the well-known Babylon court in the Hollywood & Highland complex where the Oscars are now held. I’ve noted that, in some online descriptions of the Hollywood & Highland complex, they will say Babylon Court is based on the 1916 film, “Intolerance,” without mentioning the name of its director. That isn’t always the case and I’m not suggesting there’s anything conspiratorial in this. But since it is termed Babylon Court and not D. W. Griffith’s Babylon Court, I think it’s possible to display a replica of the original set as a symbol of the old Hollywood without necessarily having to discuss and directly honor the actual man who willed it into being. A statue of Griffith in Hollywood would be much more controversial. Similarly, there are now quite a few honors to Griffith’s discoveries, Mary Pickford and Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Again, this is kind of a “back-door” honor to Griffith that doesn’t mention his name in the main title, so to speak. Had the Red Grooms sculpture on the Northern Kentucky University campus merely showed Lillian Gish as she appeared in “Way Down East,” I’m positive there would have been no outcry, no clamor to have the sculpture removed. But since Griffith has been turned into a whipping-boy, it is he and he alone who has been made to pay the price for the PC campaign against “The Birth.” The fact that the objectionable parts of the film did not originate with him but rather with Thomas Dixon, that the interpretation was consistent with most historians of the era, that it was screenwriter Frank E. Woods who first proposed and then prepared the screen treatment of “The Clansman”–all this has been overlooked in the recent “blame game.” It is a particularly negative example of the “auteur” theory carried to an illogical extreme.
In any case, I could bring up the subject of your documentary with the Timeline people. But might you be a bit more specific on what is needed to complete the film? Also, in terms of distribution, have you considered a possible broadcast on TCM, PBS or the History Channel? At least, TCM does often run Griffith’s films and in that sense keeps his name alive for the public. However, given the climate here now, I think the greatest appreciation for Griffith is to be found abroad–in such countries as France, Italy, and Japan. Perhaps there would be even more interest overseas in distributing a documentary honoring Griffith’s work in the cinema since DWG is now a prophet “not without honor–except in his own country.”
I’m looking forward to hearing from you again soon.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

On October 14, 2004, I wrote Tom Mayer further regarding the various attempts to target Griffith with some links to articles included:

Dear Tom,

Regarding the Griffith controversy, I’ve mentioned to you in previous e-mails that there had been an issue several years ago with the Red Grooms sculptures of DWG directing Lillian Gish in “Way Down East.” There had been a campaign against the display of these statues, as I had written. However, on further checking, I found that the sculptures had not been removed from the NKU campus or put in storage, as one account had it, but had been moved to another, less central location on the campus. Here are the links to several articles discussing this issue:

<http://www.kypost.com/news/1998/sculpt082298.html>

<http://www.citybeat.com/1999-03-25/letters.shtml>
<http://www.thenortherner.com/news/2003/11/19/News/Past-Issues.Boil.Over.At.Race.Forum-561940.shtml>

As I’ve said, I find this whole issue a glaring example of PC being carried to its logical extreme. The Red Grooms sculpture was not commemorating DWG’s direction of “The Birth of a Nation”; it was not even celebrating his work as a whole (which would, of course, include “Birth”) with a generalized image of him directing. Quite the contrary, the sculpture commemorated Griffith’s creation of a film which is “politically correct” in the truest sense since “Way Down East” is a powerful denunciation of sexism. I can personally testify to this since, a couple of years before the sculpture became a hot topic on the NKU campus, I attended a screening of “Way Down East” in which the audience responded with enthusiasm, including loud cheers, at the film’s condemnation of a male-dominated society’s sexual double standards in condemning women while letting men go free. Why, amidst all this debate on the campus, didn’t someone simply borrow a print (or buy a video) of “Way Down East” and screen it there so they would find out what this film is specifically about? Instead, the protestors carried their guilt-by-association to ridiculous lengths. You will note that the letter printed in “City Beat” in early 1999 mentions that Griffith was still honored by the DGA with their lifetime achievement award. Sadly, though, by the end of that year, that would no longer be the case, as most people now know.
Meanwhile, 2004 has been yet another bad year for Griffith stemming from some additional negative publicity over “The Birth of a Nation.” There was D. J. Spooky’s cut-up of footage from the film, a presentation he calls “Rebirth of a Nation,” apparently intended to trash the film (from the descriptions of his project, it sounds like a politicized version of “Fractured Flickers”). Worse than that was the uproar over Charlie Lustman’s attempt this summer to show “Birth” for one night only at his Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood. For years, when John Hampton showed the film in the 40 years that he ran the theatre, I’m not aware he ever faced hostile protests. However, due to the notoriety the Silent Movie Theatre gained when its previous owner, Lawrence Austin, was murdered there over seven years ago, the theatre is a much more visible landmark. So Lustman’s announced screening was met with an extremely hostile response. Supposedly, there were threats made on his life and threats by some to burn down the theatre. Protestors planned to demonstrate outside the theatre and the whole thing became one more negative event diminishing DWG’s reputation. Richard Schickel weighed in denouncing Griffith as a lousy director of a ridiculous film. Given that Schickel had been more respectful (if not exactly warm and fuzzy) towards Griffith in his 1970s documentary and his 1980s biography, one might wonder what caused him to so radically reverse himself with respect to DWG? My guess is that, in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, Schickel treated Griffith with more respect in order to ingratiate himself with filmmakers like Vidor, Capra, Walsh, Cukor, Renoir, Welles etc., all of whom admired Griffith (and in the case of Walsh, worked for him). Had Schickel then assailed DWG’s reputation (and Lillian Gish’s, too) as openly as he does now, the directors who had learned directly from him might have been less friendly or forthcoming with him. That’s how I think Schickel might have reasoned and also explains why he long concealed his aversion for another great, universally-respected director, John Ford. When Scott Eyman’s biography of Ford was published some years ago, Schickel vilified the filmmaker in an outrageous tirade masquerading as a review in the New York Times. It’s a depressing phenomenon I have seen time and time again with so many so-called film historians (those who become more successful and influential, that is). They pretended to have respect for the pioneering film generation but, now that they’re almost all gone, they feel free to indulge in all manner of scandalmongering, invectives and abuse.

(This letter to be continued, along with others, in part 3 of this series)
=======================================================================
27.
Dear Regg,

On June 3, 2004, in response to Tom Mayer writing me and asking if I thought there might be a centennial commemoration of the beginning of DWG’s work as a director, I wrote the following:

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your letter. As you suggest, it is really too early now to know to what extent there will be in 2008 a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of D. W. Griffith’s directorial debut. The closest parallel I could think of would be the celebrations last year of the centenary of Edwin S. Porter’s “The Great Train Robbery.” And Porter’s film is much better known, at least by name, to the average person than “The Adventures of Dollie” or indeed, any of the first films directed by DWG in 1908. It’s not until 1909 that we find Griffith films, especially “The Lonely Villa” and “A Corner in Wheat,” that have long been a staple of standard film history classes.
Unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned many times before, the constant negative publicity over “The Birth of a Nation” has, during the last 12 years or so, tended to overshadow everything else in Griffith’s career. There was a fresh reminder of this on the online discussion group, alt.movies.silent, when a recent article about the lack of a marker commemorating Griffith’s work at Biograph was posted there. The link to this sorry piece is at: <http://www.nyunews.com/artsandentertainment/film/7453.html> While the author of this article argues for a plaque on the site of the Biograph studio in NYC (he was clearly unaware that such a marker WAS placed there in 1975 but was stolen, possibly, Blanche Sweet told me, by junkies), he goes on at length about Griffith’s “execrable” views. Typically, there is no reference to anything progressive or positive in DWG’s vast body of work. He even characterizes Griffith as an “anti-Semite,” presumably because of the later Klan’s ideology. (Of course, he is unaware that Griffith promoted the screen careers of Carmel Myers and Joseph Schildkraut and tried for years to interest Hollywood in starring his friend, actress Molly Picon.) The posting of this article on alt.movies.silent had the usual effect. As they do every few weeks, it seems, Griffith-haters wrote tirades blaming DWG for just about all the racism in the USA, while the director’s admirers were put on the defensive. One disgusted pro-Griffith poster correctly pointed out that it’s gotten so bad now that people can’t even mention a film like “Sally of the Sawdust” without stating in the same breath that it was directed by that evil racist, D. W. Griffith.
Despite this, I certainly hope that some kind of centennial commemoration can be launched in 2008. After all, the next significant Griffith centenary would be in 2015, the 100th anniversary of “The Birth of a Nation,” which presumably would see another outpouring of negative commentary. A Biograph centennial which focused on his work as a whole might, at least to some extent, alleviate the expected negativity of the later anniversary.
Given all the decades that I have seen this controversy only worsen, a situation I had attempted to improve with my own writings on the subject, I have concluded sadly that it’s very much an uphill struggle for reasons that are not all that difficult to see. Griffith’s positive reputation in the United States was very much tied, not only to the persistent support of stars who worked for him (Mary Pickford, Mae Marsh, Richard Barthelmess, Neil Hamilton, Mae Marsh, Blanche Sweet, and, of course, Lillian and Dorothy Gish) and praised him in later years, but to the whole vast family of directors who were directly inspired him, both here and abroad. The directors of the “Griffith generation,” from Abel Gance and Allan Dwan (who debuted in 1911) to Orson Welles and John Huston (who began directing in 1941 about the time of DWG’s last token work in Hollywood on “One Million B.C.”), continually lauded Griffith as the great genius and artistic visionary who taught them (and the world) how to make films. Nowhere in their comments on Griffith did these illustrious filmmakers ever discuss or bring up the “Birth” controversy. Clearly, they must have felt that the quality and influence of Griffith’s work as a whole was what was important.
However, as was, of course, inevitable, this generation of filmmakers had all died by the early 1990s. While, to be sure, there are later directors who are particular admirers of Griffith (notably, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Harrington, Werner Herzog), it is probably true that for the majority of filmmakers today, Griffith has been at best a major pioneer name familiar to all for his technical innovations but not an artist in whom they find inspiration. And in the absence of a vital experience with the artist as a living presence, it has been all too easy for PC types, in and out of the industry, to fill the absence of a wider knowledge and enthusiasm by reducing Griffith to the demonized creator of “The Birth of a Nation.”
I find no justice in any of this, no vindication of anything other than the power to scapegoat those with less power and money. And compared to other illustrious names of the past, the fate of Griffith in the last few years is all too indicative of the importance of money and progeny in this allegedly egalitarian society–and how devastating to a reputation can be their lack. While Griffith was not absolutely destitute in his last years nor was he totally forgotten by Hollywood at the end of his life (for example, he was a presenter at the 1946 Academy Awards two years before his death), still, by the standards of what is deemed success in American society, he was relatively poor. And, of course, he did not have any children or grandchildren. This meant that, in the decades after his death, he was most dependent on his co-workers and the filmmakers directly inspired by him to keep his name alive. There was no Griffith foundation, no Griffith mansion, no Griffith heirs to promote his name to a later generation. And when those who were most closely affected by him themselves died out, there was a void soon filled by his detractors who have succeeded in turning him into merely a stereotyped symbol of American racism. To be sure, “The Birth” had always been controversial but, until the 1990s, it had not overwhelmed everything else Griffith in the US. Such Griffith admirers as Chaplin, Welles, John Huston, John Ford, Frank Capra, King Vidor, and Jean Renoir were all known for having strong social consciences. It certainly would have been fascinating to find out their individual opinions of the “Birth” controversy, but, to the best of my knowledge, none of them ever commented on it. Apparently, at least in film industry circles, it remained a somewhat marginal issue until the 1990s and the passing of the “Griffith generation.”
The imbalance between how Griffith has been treated compared to others of his contemporaries in different fields is illustrative of what I mean. The DGA Griffith Award rescinded in 1999 and the Red Grooms sculptures of DWG directing Lillian Gish in “Way Down East” removed from a college campus the year before are among the few public honors there were to Griffith in this country–and now they’re gone. By contrast, even though Woodrow Wilson’s racial views are often attacked (including, of course, his praise for “The Birth”), there are innumerable schools and organizations across the land bearing his name. I know of no effort, organized or otherwise, to take those honors away by renaming the institutions. Yet another great Progressive leader of Griffith’s era who frequently expressed attitudes that would be considered racist is Theodore Roosevelt. Again, no one has tried to rescind the many public honors to him.
It is not, however, only powerful presidents and political figures with heirs who lead a more charmed posthumous life than Griffith. Perhaps an even more striking example of the double standard involves one of the leading literary figures of Griffith’s generation. Jack London was certainly, in my opinion, one of our greatest novelists–and also, in many respects, one of our biggest racists. London often warned against miscegenation while championing the supremacy of the white race. It was London who, in reporting on Jack Johnson’s pugilistic victory, called for a Great White Hope to defeat the black boxer. On the Internet, I have found some virulently racist, neo-Nazi-type sites which have reprinted some of London’s more racist writings and endorsed the views in them, needless to say. Ironically, London’s racism coexisted with his simultaneous Progressive support of radical causes and the exploited working class. Again, however, there are many honors to the writer, including, of course, Jack London Square in his native Oakland. And while there are, to be sure, those who criticize him for these views, he has many impassioned defenders who are not racists, who genuinely appreciate him as a great author. They often point out that he actually did write stories sympathetic to Native Americans and Polynesians who were exploited by the whites. All of which demonstrates that London was a complex figure who should not be reduced to a caricatured redneck. Alas, by contrast, what defenders Griffith still has are much feebler by comparison, definitely thrown on the ropes by a savagely aggressive and successful campaign of demonization. But, of course, London has heirs and left an impressive estate. Griffith, working in a new art, was unable to perpetuate his name and reputation beyond museums in his last years of inactivity.
Griffith’s attackers over and over repeat the charge that “The Birth of a Nation” led to a number of lynchings. I have read many reports in both the white and the black press of that era as well as more recently-researched accounts of these incidents–and I have yet to run across a single documented case of a white lynch mob being inflamed by a screening of “The Birth” to carry out their deadly work. All I ever read is the generalized accusation that the film did all this harm with no specifics being cited. Really, it reminds me of the people who are convinced that Iraq in 2003 had weapons of mass destruction and that its government was behind the 9/11 attacks. Those who keep insisting that “Birth” led to a new wave of lynchings seem to be so convinced, even though they have yet to furnish a single concrete bit of evidence or proof. Lynchings in those years invariably arose, not from the showing of Griffith’s movie, but typically when a white person made an accusation that they (or someone close to them) had been attacked by a black, usually a male. Often egged on by local newspapers and politicians, the white mobs would then grab the black person who had been accused, whether he was guilty or not, and then murder him in a most cruel and barbarous manner. Underlying the racist attitudes that fuelled these violent actions was the ever-present spectre of economic depression. For example, it has been demonstrated that the drop in the cotton market tended to inflame racial antagonisms by whites towards blacks and thus increase the number of lynchings. Available statistics on lynchings do not support those who persist in blaming them on Griffith’s film. In fact, within two years of the film’s first release, there was actually a decline in the number of lynchings. In any case, the most absolutely vicious period for these atrocities was in the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th century. Unfortunately for the mythologizers, these murders were perpetrated by mobs of whites who obviously had never seen the as yet-unmade “Birth” film. But the Griffith-bashers would seem to have people believe that when Ol’ Hooknose Dave unleashed his terrible film on an unsuspecting public, he immediately corrupted them with his inflammatory images. They have yet to explain why, if his film did have that effect, has no one come forward in the black community with details on how their relative was killed by a mob inflamed by seeing “The Birth of a Nation?”
The allegation that the film all by its ownsome led to the revival of the KKK is a related charge that has too long been swallowed whole-hog. The immediate reason for the Klan’s local revival in Georgia in 1915 arose from the sensational Mary Phagan case, which climaxed in Leo Frank’s lynching and the rebirth of the KKK. Those who had inflamed the mob against Frank were at that time calling for a new Klan to deal with “alien” elements. To be sure, the Klan did over the years try to capitalize on screenings of “The Birth” by handing out literature drawing a comparison between the Klan in the film and their own organization. But what led to the sudden increase in the new Klan’s membership in 1920 (at a time when “Birth” had not been widely seen for several years–the film’s first big postwar revival was in the following year of 1921) was the unrelenting, regressive three-year campaign in the United States against elements deemed “un-American.” First targeted by politicians and other civic leaders were Germans and pacifists in 1917-18; in 1919, the new enemies were Bolsheviks, labor unions, racial minorities and anyone demanding greater equality as a fulfillment of the ideals promised during the war. Starting in 1920, the revived KKK became the most visible symbol of the new postwar reaction and would have materialized in some form, even if “The Birth” had never been made. It is certainly regrettable that they found Griffith’s film to their liking, no matter how much distance he tried to put between the film and this outfit. But, as the examples of Jack London being used by today’s racists to advance their ideology prove, this kind of exploitation is sadly inevitable and constantly going on. Also, it should be mentioned that, at the very same time the KKK was attempting to exploit “The Birth” in the US, the new revolutionary government of the Soviet Union was using “Intolerance” to build support for their system. Indeed, a Soviet emissary in the ’20s told Griffith that “Intolerance,” shown across their vast land, “was a powerful influence. . .in cementing the feeling for the new goverment” and that “you–unknown to yourself–were one of our biggest agents.” So it can hardly be argued that Griffith’s art in his own time was only utilized by one political faction, such as is always implied by those who persist in linking DWG solely to the revived KKK. Griffith’s films were, no doubt, utilized by people with a wide variety of political beliefs. But Griffith was no more the cause of the 1920s KKK’s revival than he was the cause of the Bolshevik rule over Russia. Large historical movements are the result of many cumulative incidents and social currents. To ascribe them all to the influence of one film is incredibly shallow and simplistic.
Getting back to what I said about the importance of money in our society, if there were a Griffith foundation and a concomitant number of public honors to the director, you can be sure such an organization would have plenty of spokespeople and researchers refuting the allegations that his film was at the center of 20th century racism in America. They would point out the facts that I have cited above and, while they would not silence all of his critics, they would release a steady stream of positive publicity on Griffith, including research papers and documentaries they would commission and fund, so that his name would continue to be widely honored here. Needless to say, they would draw public attention to all of his work and cite the many films in which he pleaded for tolerance and opposed racism. But because Griffith, as I said, died relatively poor with no direct descendants, he has become an easy target for those who seek to scapegoat him as a symbol for all that’s wrong in American race relations. You don’t have to protest or rename a vast number of well-endowed foundations and institutions across the country to denigrate his role in history–you just have to take away the DGA Award and the Red Grooms sculptures to sully his name.
Those who continue to defend the DGA’s decision endlessly repeat the tired bromide that the Guild removed DWG’s name because some day they will be honoring an Afro-American director with a lifetime achievement award–and how would he feel to get an honor with Griffith’s name attached? Nearly five years have passed since the DGA dishonored Griffith–and they have yet to give their lifetime achievement award to a black filmmaker. Of course, the DGA, being a private organization, has a right to do whatever in hell they want–but I, as a film historian, equally have a right to express my opinion of their logic. What if this were carried over to other situations? Should the city of Oakland, with its large minority population, remove Jack London’s name from the square because some people living in the city might be offended by the great writer’s racial views? Or, taking this back to the film world, should the Golden Globes drop their honor of the other great directorial founding father of Hollywood, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, because some day they will be giving it to an Asian-American filmmaker who might be upset about “The Cheat?” But there again, thankfully, that will never happen because DeMille, unlike Griffith, has heirs and I believe a foundation bearing his name. The DGA, in my opinion, should have retained the award in Griffith’s name and should the day have come when they offered it to a black filmmaker and he refused to accept it because of DWG’s name being attached–well, then you deal with the problem when it comes up instead of launching a preemptive cultural war against Griffith.
As it is now, any attempt to honor DWG today will be met with cries of “why commemorate a man whose film caused a wave of lynchings?” We badly need a scholarly analysis that will discuss this issue and I believe, based on my own research, reveal it to be an urban legend, possibly influenced by memories of earlier stage performances of Thomas Dixon’s play, “The Clansman.” A cruder, more blatantly racist work but in some ways more powerful in its immediate effect on audiences, Dixon’s play did inflame at least one or two incidents of deadly racist violence back in 1906, and it is possible that somewhere along the line, the collective memory has confused this with the later reception of “The Birth of a Nation.” However, from all that I have read so far, any violence attending showings of the film in the silent era was limited to fistfights and random acts of vandalism growing out of demonstrations against the film. And if I am mistaken and there is definite proof that Griffith’s film fueled several lynchings–well, as depressing as it would be to learn this, at least, there would then be definite proof instead of the emotional, unsubstantiated, generalized charges that are now routinely made year after year.
However, I rather doubt that a study of this kind would reveal this, and is perhaps the reason the Griffith-bashers have refrained from putting their inflammatory allegations to the test. They would then have to confront the basic nature of American society at that time instead of continually heaping abuse on one gifted individual of whom they are apparently jealous. They might also have to recognize that Griffith sought to transform and transcend Dixon’s novel and play from a mere racial diatribe about Reconstruction into a broader picture of the miseries caused by war. But so effective has been the campaign against the film in recent years that the fact it was about a real, honest-to-God war has been all but ignored in these jeremiads. One would think Griffith had created an indictment of a peaceful affirmative action program instead of what is perhaps the cinema’s first extended portrayal of war and the enduring scars it leaves behind. In effect, the controversialists have succeeded in erasing from public consciousness the first part of the film depicting the Civil War so that the second part now seems to arise in an entirely different context–that of the racial melodrama which so preoccupied Dixon’s writings.
I’m sorry to seem so negative, but, based on my many years of fighting this battle (more years than Griffith spent directing!), I thought I should lay out in even more detail some of my feelings about the difficulty one encounters in honoring Griffith today, given the hysterical but effective PC campaign against him. And since you asked me about getting funding to complete your documentary, I felt I should further explain why the atmosphere has become so poisonous here now. Is the name of Griffith included in the title of your documentary? Actually, as an example of the ultimate hypocrisy of the anti-Griffith campaign today, it is, ironically, still possible to commemorate Griffith through a “back-door” approach that downplays or omits his name. For example, there are the two replicas in recent years in Hollywood of the Babylon set from “Intolerance”–one at Disney’s California Adventure park and the other, the well-known Babylon court in the Hollywood & Highland complex where the Oscars are now held. I’ve noted that, in some online descriptions of the Hollywood & Highland complex, they will say Babylon Court is based on the 1916 film, “Intolerance,” without mentioning the name of its director. That isn’t always the case and I’m not suggesting there’s anything conspiratorial in this. But since it is termed Babylon Court and not D. W. Griffith’s Babylon Court, I think it’s possible to display a replica of the original set as a symbol of the old Hollywood without necessarily having to discuss and directly honor the actual man who willed it into being. A statue of Griffith in Hollywood would be much more controversial. Similarly, there are now quite a few honors to Griffith’s discoveries, Mary Pickford and Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Again, this is kind of a “back-door” honor to Griffith that doesn’t mention his name in the main title, so to speak. Had the Red Grooms sculpture on the Northern Kentucky University campus merely showed Lillian Gish as she appeared in “Way Down East,” I’m positive there would have been no outcry, no clamor to have the sculpture removed. But since Griffith has been turned into a whipping-boy, it is he and he alone who has been made to pay the price for the PC campaign against “The Birth.” The fact that the objectionable parts of the film did not originate with him but rather with Thomas Dixon, that the interpretation was consistent with most historians of the era, that it was screenwriter Frank E. Woods who first proposed and then prepared the screen treatment of “The Clansman”–all this has been overlooked in the recent “blame game.” It is a particularly negative example of the “auteur” theory carried to an illogical extreme.
In any case, I could bring up the subject of your documentary with the Timeline people. But might you be a bit more specific on what is needed to complete the film? Also, in terms of distribution, have you considered a possible broadcast on TCM, PBS or the History Channel? At least, TCM does often run Griffith’s films and in that sense keeps his name alive for the public. However, given the climate here now, I think the greatest appreciation for Griffith is to be found abroad–in such countries as France, Italy, and Japan. Perhaps there would be even more interest overseas in distributing a documentary honoring Griffith’s work in the cinema since DWG is now a prophet “not without honor–except in his own country.”
I’m looking forward to hearing from you again soon.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

On October 14, 2004, I wrote Tom Mayer further regarding the various attempts to target Griffith with some links to articles included:

Dear Tom,

Regarding the Griffith controversy, I’ve mentioned to you in previous e-mails that there had been an issue several years ago with the Red Grooms sculptures of DWG directing Lillian Gish in “Way Down East.” There had been a campaign against the display of these statues, as I had written. However, on further checking, I found that the sculptures had not been removed from the NKU campus or put in storage, as one account had it, but had been moved to another, less central location on the campus. Here are the links to several articles discussing this issue:

<http://www.kypost.com/news/1998/sculpt082298.html>

<http://www.citybeat.com/1999-03-25/letters.shtml>
<http://www.thenortherner.com/news/2003/11/19/News/Past-Issues.Boil.Over.At.Race.Forum-561940.shtml>

As I’ve said, I find this whole issue a glaring example of PC being carried to its logical extreme. The Red Grooms sculpture was not commemorating DWG’s direction of “The Birth of a Nation”; it was not even celebrating his work as a whole (which would, of course, include “Birth”) with a generalized image of him directing. Quite the contrary, the sculpture commemorated Griffith’s creation of a film which is “politically correct” in the truest sense since “Way Down East” is a powerful denunciation of sexism. I can personally testify to this since, a couple of years before the sculpture became a hot topic on the NKU campus, I attended a screening of “Way Down East” in which the audience responded with enthusiasm, including loud cheers, at the film’s condemnation of a male-dominated society’s sexual double standards in condemning women while letting men go free. Why, amidst all this debate on the campus, didn’t someone simply borrow a print (or buy a video) of “Way Down East” and screen it there so they would find out what this film is specifically about? Instead, the protestors carried their guilt-by-association to ridiculous lengths. You will note that the letter printed in “City Beat” in early 1999 mentions that Griffith was still honored by the DGA with their lifetime achievement award. Sadly, though, by the end of that year, that would no longer be the case, as most people now know.
Meanwhile, 2004 has been yet another bad year for Griffith stemming from some additional negative publicity over “The Birth of a Nation.” There was D. J. Spooky’s cut-up of footage from the film, a presentation he calls “Rebirth of a Nation,” apparently intended to trash the film (from the descriptions of his project, it sounds like a politicized version of “Fractured Flickers”). Worse than that was the uproar over Charlie Lustman’s attempt this summer to show “Birth” for one night only at his Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood. For years, when John Hampton showed the film in the 40 years that he ran the theatre, I’m not aware he ever faced hostile protests. However, due to the notoriety the Silent Movie Theatre gained when its previous owner, Lawrence Austin, was murdered there over seven years ago, the theatre is a much more visible landmark. So Lustman’s announced screening was met with an extremely hostile response. Supposedly, there were threats made on his life and threats by some to burn down the theatre. Protestors planned to demonstrate outside the theatre and the whole thing became one more negative event diminishing DWG’s reputation. Richard Schickel weighed in denouncing Griffith as a lousy director of a ridiculous film. Given that Schickel had been more respectful (if not exactly warm and fuzzy) towards Griffith in his 1970s documentary and his 1980s biography, one might wonder what caused him to so radically reverse himself with respect to DWG? My guess is that, in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, Schickel treated Griffith with more respect in order to ingratiate himself with filmmakers like Vidor, Capra, Walsh, Cukor, Renoir, Welles etc., all of whom admired Griffith (and in the case of Walsh, worked for him). Had Schickel then assailed DWG’s reputation (and Lillian Gish’s, too) as openly as he does now, the directors who had learned directly from him might have been less friendly or forthcoming with him. That’s how I think Schickel might have reasoned and also explains why he long concealed his aversion for another great, universally-respected director, John Ford. When Scott Eyman’s biography of Ford was published some years ago, Schickel vilified the filmmaker in an outrageous tirade masquerading as a review in the New York Times. It’s a depressing phenomenon I have seen time and time again with so many so-called film historians (those who become more successful and influential, that is). They pretended to have respect for the pioneering film generation but, now that they’re almost all gone, they feel free to indulge in all manner of scandalmongering, invectives and abuse.

(This letter to be continued, along with others, in part 3 of this series)
=========================================================================
28. Dear Regg,

I continued my letter of October 14, 2004, by providing Tom Mayer with the following news item:

A further indication of the climate in which we are living is the following news from some weeks ago and not too long after the widely-publicized anti-”Birth” protests stemming from the aborted Silent Movie Theatre screening:

<http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/9746440.htm>

Activist wants N.C. library to pull copy of ‘The Birth of a Nation

Associated Press

OXFORD, N.C. – A civil-rights activist has asked a library to remove
the 1915 silent film “The Birth of a Nation” from its collection
because he worries hate groups will use it to recruit members.

The groundbreaking controversial film has been criticized since its
release nearly 90 years ago because it portrays members of the Ku Klux
Klan as heroes and features actors in blackface.

The Rev. Curtis E. Gatewood, a past president of the Durham branch of
the NAACP, recently checked out a videotape copy of the film from the
library and said he was surprised by its depiction of the KKK.

“Allowing the movie to be circulated through public systems such as
the library is equivalent to publicly providing materials that would
support, celebrate, and recruit members to join violent groups such as
those who rained ‘terror’ on this nation September 11, 2001,” Gatewood
wrote in a letter to Granville County Library Director Louise Dorton.

Dorton said Gatewood’s complaint is the first she had received about
the film in the three years that it has been in the library’s
collection.

Dorton says the film has historical significance, but she doesn’t
support its content.

The film, directed by D.W. Griffith, is famous for such editing
techniques as crosscutting and the use of wide shots and closeups.
Film experts have credited it as being groundbreaking and essential to
the establishment of modern moviemaking techniques.

Many people consider it one of the greatest films of all time.

Gatewood must file an official complaint about the book before the
library can consider his request to remove it from the collection,
Dorton said.

Dorton said she’d like to meet with Gatewood to discuss a compromise
that would keep the movie on the shelf.

Now I realize that, conditions being what they are, no revival house in the USA can show “The Birth” today for fear of his theatre being targeted or even his life being threatened. It also seems rather unlikely that TCM will screen it again, either. But, if protesting its circulation in a public library were to become a trend, where would these protestors go next? Would they next start targeting video companies that sell the film? Would they label them as peddlers of hate propaganda for carrying the film?
Note that the Reverend Gatewood specifically invokes the 9/11 attacks to justify withdrawing “Birth” from the library’s collection. In making a direct link between Griffith’s film and recent events, he thus inadvertently reveals the fundamentally reactionary, anti-liberal character of the assaults on “Birth.” That self-styled progressives continue to whip up frenzied campaigns against the film and its director is sadly ironic. In more ways than one, they have cut off their nose to spite their face. As for Gatewood’s claim that he was surprised to find out how the original Klan was depicted in the 1915 film, I find it very hard to believe that a past president of a branch of the NAACP would have been unfamiliar with the “Birth” controversy at this late date. How could he not have known, considering that the NAACP has been incessantly protesting the film since 1915? Personally, I think he was being disingenuous. Also, why didn’t he have a look at the library’s other holdings before selectively targeting “The Birth?” I am pretty sure that the library would have a copy of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” (the original novel). Unlike Selznick’s softened film version, Mitchell’s classic novel depicts the Reconstruction era, including the blacks and the 19th century Klan, in almost exactly the same way as Griffith’s film. If Gatewood wishes to shield people from historical interpretations he views as harmful, he would have to extend his protests well beyond “The Birth of a Nation”–unless, of course, he is merely reading from the script per usual in scapegoating the 1915 film as the root cause of all America’s racial ills. (Further reason why I rather doubt he was really “surprised” by “The Birth.”)
Incidentally, as part of its ongoing retrospective of all of Griffith’s films, the annual Pordenone/Sacile Silent Film Festival in Italy is presenting yet again “The Birth of a Nation.” Will someone here now decide that Pordenone or Sacile is a terrorist base and ought to be bombed? That’s really how absurd the logic of these protestors is.
I’ll likely have more to say about these issues in future e-mails. But for now, I thought I’d keep you updated on the Griffith controversy as it is since we last corresponded.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
In a follow-up e-mail, I sent Tom Mayer later the same day (October 14, 2004), I wrote him further about the Griffith controversy:

Dear Tom,

Here, by the way, is the link to the main article in the Cincinnati magazine, “City Beat,” on the Griffith controversy on the KNU campus. It was the cover story for the March 18, 1999 issue at: <http://www.citybeat.com/1999-03-18/cover.shtml>
I would take exception to the author’s notion that Griffith had been almost entirely forgotten everywhere except as the “racist” director of “The Birth of a Nation,” although that is certainly the aim of the controversialists. (”The most esoteric of early film artists?” I hardly think so! Needless to say, there are many more whose names are almost entirely unknown to the public today.) Nowhere does he mention the fact that Griffith is still revered in other countries, as witness the Pordenone’s annual retrospectives of Griffith which had been going on for several years prior to the publication of this article. Never once does he mention the many other social and historical themes in Griffith’s films, many of them progressive. In particular, his description of “Way Down East” completely ignores its feminist content. misrepresenting it as a simplistic melodrama. As I have written about my attendance of a screening of the film at San Jose’s Towne Theatre in October 1995, the audience was so caught up by the film, so affected by its theme, that when Lillian Gish as Anna Moore confronted and denounced the hypocrisy and cruelty of the male-dominated society that had condemned her, they not only burst into applause at these scenes, they cheered, yelled, shouted! Particularly the women in the audience. It was one of the most remarkable displays of emotion I have ever seen in a theatre, almost visceral in its impact, a display of support for a film with a progressive theme–and one directed by the much-maligned Griffith who demonstrated in an intensely moving, dramatic way his sympthy for a woman refusing to be a victim of humanity’s oldest, most long-lasting injustice, sexism. The sufferings endured by Anna Moore in the film continue to be the lot of millions of women around the world to this day.
In a sense, of course, the article has become a self-fulfilling prophecy since its decidedly limited view of Griffith as an artist seems to have become the norm on the part of the American establishment. As I think I’ve indicated before, I was entirely unaware of the controversy over the Red Grooms sculpture and Griffith at the time it was creating a stir on the NKU campus in 1998-99. It does not seem to have attracted any wider attention outside the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky region–I don’t recall it ever being picked up by the wire services as a national news story–although it obviously presaged the DGA’s withdrawal of the Griffith award at the end of that year.
Who or what is to blame for this melancholy situation? As I’ve said, quite apart from all the misstatements, half-truths and outright lies about DWG that have circulated unchecked for years, there is the tragedy, unmentioned by the article’s author, Steve Ramos, that Griffith’s reputation in his own country had been so tied to that generation who had known his work first-hand, including, obviously, his stars like Lillian Gish, but also the entire generation of filmmakers who learned cinema from him, from Allan Dwan to Orson Welles. Nowhere does the article mention the honors that had later come Griffith’s way in the 1970s, just prior to Grooms creating his sculpture, including the issuing of a commemorative stamp during his centennial year of 1975.
Of course, I have long been all too aware of the intensity of the anti-Griffith controversy in his own country. It was partly to answer them that I wrote my own book-length study of “Intolerance,” published by McFarland in 1986. However, I regret my immediate response to the DGA’s decision to drop the Griffith award in late 1999. So infuriated was I by this that I blindly accepted an offer to write an article on the controversy for a publication claiming to be against political correctness. What I didn’t fully realize was how absolutely right-wing this publication was, espousing recationary, warmongering views totally antithetical to mine. And while they did not significantly alter the text of my article, they changed its title entirely without my knowledge or permission. I had called it “The DGA vs. DWG–Anatomy of a Controversy” and they saw fit to retitle it “PC Madness in Hollywood.” Well, I would never claim to be an expert on political correctness in Hollywood and this title change had the effect of shifting the focus where it should have been to a broader issue. Worse than that, and again without my knowledge or permission, in a deliberate attempt to be “provocative,” they inserted images of the Klan from “The Birth,” instead of, as I would have preferred, using a portrait of Griffith or a still from other of his films. The end result of this is I don’t think I did DWG any good with the article–I merely subjected myself needlessly to a lot of liberal guilt for selling out to the dark forces of reaction in a futile attempt to halt the juggernaut demolishing the great director’s reputation. When I sent a copy of the publication to Kevin Brownlow and told him I felt badly about having been published in this kind of journal, he told me I wasn’t to blame since I had been “snookered” by them and didn’t know how right-wing this outfit was. Still, I continue to feel I should instead have waged my battles in the mass circulation newspapers where, in the wake of the DGA’s decision, Griffith’s reputation was further being crucified.
In any case, as depressing and short-sighted as this 1999 article is, I think you should be aware of it and the sentiments it contains in light of your own forthcoming documentary on Griffith’s years filming in New York.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

On November 11, 2004, I sent Tom Mayer a National Public Radio story regarding DJ Spooky’s “Birth” project along with a contrasting reference that indicated Griffith continued to be respected elsewhere in the world:

Dear Tom,

While I’ll likely have much more to say on this and other Griffith matters in the coming weeks, for your information, I’m pasting into this e-mail the NPR story regarding DJ Spooky’s dubious project:

DJ Spooky, Recasting ‘Birth of a Nation’
Listen

View DJ Spooky’s ‘Rebirth of a Nation’

Paul Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky

Weekend Edition – Sunday, October 17, 2004 · Paul D. Miller, also
known as DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, has taken his talents remixing
sound and music for the club scene, and applied them to a new medium:
film.

He’s been touring the world presenting D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film The
Birth of a Nation as a video remix called “Rebirth of a Nation.”

The film, based on a 1905 novel called The Clansman, was a
breakthrough in the early days of cinema, but its racist subject
matter and crude stereotypes earned Griffith much scorn.

“In a certain sense what I’m doing is portraying the film as he
intended it,” DJ Spooky says of his remix. “This is a film glorifying
a horrible situation. And I think a modern sensibility is something
where people will look at this and go like ‘Oh, I can’t believe this,
I don’t relate to it, I don’t think this is right, what does he mean?’
So it’s not letting him off the hook so much as presenting the film
and actually having it fall in on itself.”

By way of contrast to this evidence of the current attempt to trash DWG’s reputation, I found a fascinating story in the China Daily of two days ago (November 8, 2004) at: <http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/111498.htm> concerning Zhou Yuanqiang, a self-taught film director in a village in the Chinese province of Jiangxi who, for a dozen years, has been successfully making his own films on limited budgets far from the great metropolitan centers of film production in China. Zheng Dasheng, a young director from the traditional center of the Chinese cinema, Shanghai, was so intrigued by the story of this indigenous filmmaking in the Chinese provincial village that he made a documentary about it. Zheng concludes his observations in the article by commenting that, if Zhou “had lived 100 years ago, he would be D. W. Griffith.” I found that significant since it indicates that, in China as in most of the world, Griffith is still recognized as the great artist who did so much to develop cinema into an art. It appears that Griffith remains an inspiring prophet who is not without honor except in his own country.
Incidentally, next year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of film production in China. The great expansion of the Chinese silent cinema began in the early 1920s under the impact, needless to say, of Griffith. Soon, the Chinese began developing their own national cinematic style and, as with Japan, experienced a final golden age of silent film production in the 1930s thanks to their late adoption of sound. I have in my collection VCD (video cassette disc) copies of a number of the most famous Chinese silents, films which, in my opinion, rank among the greatest achievements of the silent cinema.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

On November 20, 2004, I was able to give Tom Mayer more details on DJ Spooky’s project thanks to an unusually intelligent review. I also included some fascinating and unconventional analysis of “Birth” by an outstanding film analyst in his book:

Dear Tom,

I’m pasting into this e-mail a review of the DJ Spooky “Birth” project which provides more details. The critic provides some interesting comments on the original film, as she pays tribute to Griffith’s artistic genius and says DJ Spooky’s remix makes one want to go back to the original:

<http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-mca20.html>

DJ Spooky remixes Griffith classic

November 20, 2004

BY HEDY WEISS Theater Critic

“Rebirth of a Nation” is a newly scored, sampled, remixed and otherwise
manipulated 75-minute meditation on “The Birth of a Nation,” the
three-hour silent film masterpiece about the Civil War and the rise of
the Ku Klux Klan that was created by D.W. Griffith in 1915, and has
been generating fierce controversy ever since.

The irony of this “new” fractured and condensed multimedia work –
devised by the New York-based conceptual artist DJ Spooky “That
Subliminal Kid” (a k a Paul D. Miller), and being “spun” live by him
this weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art Theatre — is that it
makes you want to head back to the source. Inadvertently or not,
“Rebirth” reminds you of Griffith’s absolute genius as a cinematic
pioneer — the brilliance of his technical innovation, his amazing
facility for choreography (whether a plantation ball, a congressional
session or the Klansmen on their horses) and his panoramic view of
history. And no matter how despicable you may find the content of his
work, it possesses a ferocity of emotion and a sense of warped social
relationships few films in this politically correct world are able to
generate.

Spooky’s own contributions are rooted in the nonlinear narrative and
repetition so emblematic of contemporary pop culture. His score, “The
Rebirth Suite,” orchestrated by Howard Kenty, is loud and driving if
less than nuanced; his overlay of manipulated scenes from dances by
Bill T. Jones is quite effective. But the whole exercise leaves you
wondering whether all the sensory overload and embellishment (including
a mix of international logos and flags as a prelude) in any way
illuminates the material, or even gives those who haven’t seen the
original a basis for judgment.

You may detest Griffith’s vision and dub it “racist,” yet in many ways
his film captured with unblinking honesty all the fear, chaos and
propaganda that infected both blacks and whites and Northerners and
Southerners during the Civil War and Reconstruction years. And he
certainly got to the root of the psychology behind the Klan — like it
or not. His scenes of jivin’-and-shuckin’ slaves, of ill-tempered
mulattoes and, most stunning of all, of an all-black congressional
session, may be repellent. But they remain truly transgressive and
unforgettable.

I note that Hedy Weiss’ observations indicate a willingness to go beyond the standard dismissal of the film’s content as a simple-minded racial melodrama. This is something I have thought of developing as a theme for a number of years. I will have more to say about this, including possible suggestions for new approaches to reviving “Birth” in a manner that might parallel fresh concepts in staging Shakespearean plays (e.g., with a new musical score reinterpreting the images, or a live “benshi” narrator in the Japanese tradition of silent film presentation). I take Shakespeare as a model because, if you were to revive many of his works on the assumption that they could only be interpreted according to the attitudes and prejudices of his own time, he would have very little appeal today to many people. “Henry V” would be dismissed merely as a mindless glorification of a ruthless conqueror and “The Merchant of Venice” regarded only as the celebration of good Christians thwarting the evil designs of Shylock the Jew. (Indeed, for many decades, that is how those plays were most often viewed by critics.) But, proceeding according to D. H. Lawrence’s dictum to “trust the tale, not the teller,” those responsible for reinterpreting and reviving Shakespeare have looked beyond the surface prejudices of Shakespeare’s age that appear in some of his plays–prejudices which he may have shared to a degree on a conscious level–to find deeper meanings that make his work timeless and relevant. I think the same could be done with respect to “The Birth of a Nation,” viewing Griffith’s film as having a tragic stature that goes far beyond the simplistic assurances of Thomas Dixon’s original novel and play.
A fine example of the kind of sophisticated interpretation of “Birth” that has been sorely lacking from most analyses of the film can be found in William Rothman’s 1988 critical volume on film, “The ‘I’ of the Camera.” He describes in detail, complete with stills from the film, the sequence of Flora’s pursuit by Gus leading to her death. The shots of Gus watching Flora he characterizes as “expresionistic” with the twisted branches of the tree on one side of the frame of his close-up “an expressive metaphor for the monstrous forces within him that his intoxication threatens to liberate.” Rothman continues: “Monstrousness threatens to possess Gus; yet he is not a villain. A dupe of the ambitious mulatto Lynch, himself a victim of Stoneman, the twisted, hypocritical carpetbagger, Gus is a figure of pathos, like the lunatic in ‘The House of Darkness.’” Rothman points out the similarity between the semi-close-up of the lunatic in this Biograph film framed by tree branches as he views an innocent woman. But whereas the playing of music providentially calms him and averts a tragic situation, there is no such miracle in this sequence in “The Birth.”
Rothman continues his analysis: “Gus steps forward from his place as a secret viewer and innocently presents himself to Mae Marsh. Heartbreakingly, he declares his love for her and proposes marriage. Reacting in horror, the terrified child flees. Gus runs after her, desperately trying to reassure her that he means no harm. She climbs to the top of a cliff, with the frenzied Gus close behind. When he steps forward again, apparently to stop her from leaping, she jumps to her death.
“Moments later, the Little Colonel (Henry Walthall) comes upon his dying sister. Realizing what has happened, he stares into the camera, his face an expressionless mask.
“Walthall, a magnificent actor, plays this as a scene out of Shakespearean tragedy, not melodrama. In his anguish and his despair, he dedicates himself to vengeance; this is what Walthall’s acting, under Griffith’s direction, expresses. His look to the camera calls upon us to acknowledge his guilt, not his innocence, for he knows in his heart that he has no right to condemn Gus–because he himself at this moment, with the camera as witness, guiltily embraces the dark, monstrous forces within himself.
“The last third of ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ with its nightmarish inversion of Griffith’s cherished values, follows from this guilty moment. The vengeful Ku Klux Klan, emerging out of darkness, does not and cannot restore the rightful order. All it can do is allow our nation to be born; it cannot save its soul. The burden of ‘The Birth of a Nation’ is that America was born with blood on its hands. Its soul remains to be saved.”
If you are interested, I may follow up in subsequent e-mails with some ideas of my own, including my interpretation of “The Birth” as possessing, despite its title, an essentially cyclical, pessimistic view of history rather than the kind of progressive, optimistic vision of history to be found in, for example, the great silent western epics like “The Covered Wagon” and “The Iron Horse.”

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

The following day (November 21, 2004), I sent Tom Mayer a much more (sadly) typical piece from the Chicago Tribune that attacked Griffith while praising the DJ Spooky piece. Among this critic’s misstatements is his claim that “Birth” was “the first movie with a palpably political agenda (!).” In reality. films advancing political agendas date back to the very beginning of the cinema in the 1890s, such as the US films intended to bolster support for the Spanish-American War in 1898. There had been many other films with political agendas in the two decades of cinema preceding “Birth,” some of them made by DWG himself. In any case, my letter and the review is as follows:

Dear Tom,

By way of contrast to Hedy Weiss’ much more thoughtful comments on “The Birth of a Nation” (not to mention the quotes from William Rothman I included in my e-mail) is this unintelligent, knee-jerk piece of PC tripe from a Chicago Tribune reviewer regarding “Birth” in the context of the DJ Spooky remix:

<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0411200163nov20,1,336298=>

`Nation’ remix is not quite a stirring success

By Chris Jones
Tribune arts reporter
Published November 20, 2004

Few cultural artifacts are as ripe for contemporary deconstruction as
D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation.” In this single artistic
creation from 1915, you can find the birth of the narrative Hollywood
epic, the first movie with a palpable political agenda and perhaps the
most heinous and malicious depiction of African-Americans in the
history of mass entertainment.

And we think people are unduly influenced by the media of today!
Griffith — who filled his apologia for the Ku Klux Klan with a bevy of
disingenuous historical justifications and elaborately pompous
disclaimers — had figured out the dirty politics of persuasion back
when cable still was merely a material designed to hold up bridges.

New Yorker Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. “DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid,” has
armed himself with a Powerbook, three big screens, some Robert Johnson
recordings, videotape from Bill T. Jones’ “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s
Cabin/The Promised Land,” some other stuff and a mixing board. And he
has set himself the task of bringing this artifact crashing down and
rebuilding it as a manifesto for a new kind of America. Miller says he
wants “The Birth of a Nation” redux, revisited, retooled and, most of
all, re-appropriated.

“Think of this as the first salvo in the election of 2008,” DJ Spooky
told the crowd at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Thursday night.

Yet because we’re all watching a Klan recruitment tool here, the result
is surprisingly muted and short on anger.

Even though one is watching a live “remix” with some nods to hip-hop
and club culture, Miller actually is a heady creature of the
performance-art scene. Thoughtful and intellectual, he runs bits of
Griffith through his computer and ends up with a piece that’s more
ruminative than revolutionary. And ironically, it’s Griffith rather
than Miller who remains the center of the stage.

In some ways, that’s both no bad thing and one of Miller’s clear
intents. Watch Miller’s selection and replaying of famous Griffith
scenes such as the Klan’s march, or the barefooted black legislatures
eating chicken, and Griffith’s lies are laid bare anew.

Miller’s work makes one wonder about the feelings of the actors (this
film was the first to feature an African-American performer in
blackface). You ponder the emotions of the original audience. You
marvel at the ways in which reasonable people can be led by an agenda
of hate, just so long as it’s afforded the legitimacy of the mass
media.

Yet most of Miller’s visual impositions on the original celluloid are
abstract and, at times, rather distant. The soundscape forges a kind of
dreamy, otherworldly quality.

The result has a profound sadness about it. You find yourself mourning
old American injustices and fearing little has changed. And that’s a
tribute to this inventive young artist’s adroit avoidance of the
hackneyed or the obvious.

But still, this is “The Birth of a Nation.” We’re talking ground zero
for Hollywood racism. You cannot help but want DJ Spooky to grab this
movie by the scruff of its neck and twist it around until it screams
with pain.

———-

“DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation”

When: Through Sunday

Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave.

Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Tickets: $22 at 312-397-4010

Copyright =A9 2004, Chicago Tribune

Not once in anti-Griffith diatribes such as those penned by Chris Jones is there ever an acknowledgement (even once) that “The Birth of a Nation” is about a WAR and a MILITARY OCCUPATION! As such, “Birth” has far more relevance to the tragedies being endured by the Iraqi people at this very moment in the wake of the US invasion and occupation of that country than to the mid-20th century civil rights struggle in the US. The ongoing conflict in Iraq is utilizing much the same kind of moralistic slogans about promoting “freedom” and “democracy” as a cover for corruption, power-mongering and revenge that was used by the Republican leadership of the post-Civil War era to justify the military occupation of the South during the Reconstruction era. One would think from articles like Mr. Jones’ that Griffith’s film was a protest against the non-violent attempts to change the South’s racial structure by court actions and leaders like Martin Luther King. The attempt by these politicized critics to, in effect, deny that “The Birth of a Nation” is even about a war they never mention in their critiques is surely one of the more bizarre rewrites of film history ever perpetrated in which the celebrated battle scenes have simply disappeared. (And where did Jones come up with the information that “Birth” was the first film to feature an African-American performer in blackface?! There are many actual blacks appearing in the film but none of them are in blackface a la the great comedian Bert Williams. Of course, the whites who play black roles are in blackface, a common practice in those days and not the invention of DWG as some have apparently supposed.)
Furthermore, if this is all that Chris Jones finds in the content of “The Birth of a Nation,” then it is intellectually dishonest of him to refer to it as D. W. Griffith’s vision since this critic’s interpretation of it is reflective merely of Thomas Dixon’s original racial melodrama rather than DWG’s much more tragic, disturbing and ambiguous creation. He should instead have talked about Dixon’s “lies” and “dirty politics of persuasion.” But, as so often happens with the “blame-it-all-on-Griffith” crowd, both Dixon’s name and the fact that the presentation of history in the film was in accord with the leading historians of the day has also vanished from the attack.
Reading the kind of banal, ritualistic, entirely unoriginal and predictable “outrage” penned by Chris Jones reminds me of George Orwell’s observations in “Politics and the English Language”: “When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases. . . .one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching (NB: or in this case reading) a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker (NB: or I might add, critic) who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.”
Unfortunately, the kind of nonsense spouted by Chris Jones–one which does not address or even so much as acknowledge the possibility of alternate interpretations of this film–is all too common these days. In my opinion, the United States is fast becoming a totalitarian, entirely uncreative society with a pseudo-division between the actual ruling class of religious fundamentalists and imperialists of the Bush regime and its Siamese twin among the PC so-called liberals represented by robotic writers like Mr. Jones. But far from being opposites, the two sides are mirror images of each other with a symbiotic relationship that is strangling independent thought in this once-great country of ours. And when a culture becomes this rigid, then the decay of the society is inevitable as other nations experiencing a renaissance of art and thought come to the fore.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
============================================================
29.
Dear Regg,

In a follow-up on November 21, 2004, I e-mailed Tom Mayer an additional point regarding the anti-DWG review in the Chicago Tribune:

Dear Tom,

An additional point I’d like to make in re Chris Jones’ anti-DWG review, namely, in reference to “Birth”’s original audience, his marveling at, in his words, “the ways reasonable people are led by an agenda of hate.” In effect, what he is saying is that there were very few racists in the United States until Griffith’s diabolically persuasive film appeared. Apparently, the minds of all these previously reasonable individuals were poisoned by “The Birth,” yet another variant of the Griffith-as-Hitler analogy that has become so common in recent years. This notion is so absolutely shallow, so totally false and unintelligent that I really am tired of wasting my energies on trying to refute it. One reason, it seems, why “Birth” has suddenly surfaced in arguments this year is because of all the controversy surrounding “The Passion of the Christ” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,” there has been a renewed focus on DWG’s epic as the original controversial film that allegedly changed history. But if there is one thing people should have learned this year, it is that a single film, no matter how powerful, cannot alter most people’s minds in any definitive way for either good or ill. “The Passion of the Christ” did not suddenly convert millions of non-believers to Mel Gibson’s fundamentalist vision of the crucifixion nor did it provoke, as some feared, a wave of anti-Semitic pogroms around the world. And obviously, “Fahrenheit 9/11″ did not succeed in defeating Bush. In truth, all that a single film can do in terms of propagandistic persuasion is to appeal to the already-committed base of adherents to its doctrines while arousing the opposition of those who object to it. In the case of “The Birth of a Nation,” if audience members left the theatres in 1915 despising black people, then it is highly likely that most of them were already racist to begin with.
Jones’ attack also ignores the many people who simply appreciated the film as an exciting work of art powerfully depicting a dramatic era in American history and who never were captive to some supposed sinister agenda of Griffith’s. Or does Jones view individuals like Charlie Chaplin, Carl Sandburg, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Graham Greene, James Agee, Paul Goodman, Emile De Antonio, all of whom were great admirers of “The Birth,” to be so much putty in DWG’s evil hands?
In actuality, it has never been the case that a single film dramatically alters the perceptions of the masses, as the failure of “The Passion of the Christ” and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ to convert the unbelieving demonstrated again this year. “All Quiet on the Western Front” obviously did not end war forever as many hoped in 1930–on the contrary, the years immediately following its release were far more militaristic than those before in the ’20s–nor did “Potemkin” lead to a world-wide revolution in its day. The most effect that a single film can have is something like with “It Happened One Night” when Clark Gable appearing without an undershirt caused sales of this form of apparel to go way down in 1934. But that is only in the comparatively superficial area of fads and fashions and is hardly the same as having the ability to fundamentally alter men’s minds and thus change the course of history. Where the cinema does significantly affect the attitudes of masses of people is not through the experience of a single film but through a whole series of films–that is, through constant repetition of the same point(s) which thus shape the public attitude. It was not “Triumph of the Will” which played a major role in bolstering German support for Hitler as has often been alleged, but the constant pro-Nazi propaganda in the German newsreels shown week after week in the film theatres of the Third Reich. With respect to race relations in the USA and white attitudes towards blacks, this was far more affected by the continual portrayal of Afro-American characters in film after film for decades as stereotypical comic figures in menial positions. While these portrayals did not, of course, incite racist violence (which was actually far greater and more intense in the years prior to “The Birth”’s release than after it), they had the effect of anesthetizing the racial situation by making it appear harmless and thus of no pressing concern. Additionally, the American public’s perception of black people in general would have been affected by the innumerable films set in Africa in which the native blacks were invariably depicted as savages with no countervailing cinematic portrayals of sophisticated African cultures in cities like Timbuktu or the ancient Ghana Empire. However, it’s much easier to blame all of America’s racial problems on one man and one film than to address the broader factors by which the American public was for decades never exposed to either cinematic depictions of the harshness of Jim Crow nor the fact that there were advanced cultures in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Finally, I note that, whatever Chris Jones’ personal politics may be, the paper for which he writes, the Chicago Tribune, is hardly a bastion of liberalism. Indeed, this year they were in the minority of US newspapers endorsing Bush. So he hardly has any moral right to claim he is part of a liberal, enlightened generation as he demonizes an artist who opposed war and the death penalty while continually championing in his work women and the impoverished victims of the class struggle.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
On December 5, 2004, Tom Mayer wrote me that the reopening of the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville, one of the last golden age movie palaces, on February 25, 2005, would have as its featured attraction DJ Spooky’s “Birth” reworking (or travesty, depending on one’s point of view), something he feels will shadow what should be a festive occasion. (The Tennesse, built in 1928, had been closed for renovations since the spring of 2003, their last presentation then being an excellent presentation of William Wellman’s WWI classic, “Wings,” complete with Wurlitzer organ accompaniment.) Since an archive friend of Tom’s, Brad Reeves, was planning to attend this event despite his own misgivings, I suggested to Brad (via this letter to Tom) that, if possible, he raise some of the issues with DJ Spooky some of the issues I mention at the end:

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your letter and the information. I wonder if there will be any kind of Q&A session with DJ Spooky after his presentation? If so, you might suggest to Brad Reeves that he ask DJ Spooky some of the following: First of all, I recognize that, since “The Birth of a Nation” has long since fallen into the public domain, DJ Spooky, like anyone else, has every right to use the film or parts of it in any way he chooses. His freedom of expression is not at all at issue here. But what I would like to ask him is how does he feel about the fact that the film he is using for his project is de facto banned in this country? As the incident with the Silent Movie Theatre’s aborted screening of “Birth” in Los Angeles proved earlier this year, the negative controversy has worked to suppress public performances of the film here. And we are not talking about a big, nation-wide revival of the film with live orchestral accompaniment (a highly unlikely proposition for the majority of silents today, let alone one as controversial as “Birth”) but simply an attempt to show the film for one night only in a small if well-known theatre to a medium-sized audience. Yet when Charlie Lustman announced he was going to show the film in his theatre, he reportedly received death threats and ominous warnings that his theatre would be burned down if he went ahead with the screening, not to mention the fact that various groups threatened to demonstrate outside his theatre. And this is not an isolated incident. Back in 1980, an “activist” mob vandalized a San Francisco theatre showing “The Birth.” Despite periodic protests of the film’s screening by the NAACP and others since its first release, “The Birth” had been a staple of classic film revival houses for many years. But after the 1980 incident, such screenings became less frequent, indeed, quite rare; partly in order to guard against a repeat of the 1980 attack, presentations of the film, whether in archives or revival theatres, were, after that, usually accompanied by a discussion group. (What other film has been forced by circumstances to have a discussion group criticizing its content simply in order to be shown?) But now with the threats against the Silent Movie Theatre, even a virtually mandated discussion group or forum may no longer prevent a violent attack of some kind should the film be shown.
What I am getting to with all this is that DJ Spooky is, in a sense, profiting from a film that is being censored. At least judging from Chris Jones’ anti-Griffith tirade in The Chicago Tribune, DJ Spooky seems to be attempting to “expose” “The Birth” as some kind of nefarious stain on American history and culture. But given the tireless efforts of those who agree with the point of view stated by Mr. Jones in the Trib (and apparently the object of DJ’s project), the audiences viewing his “Rebirth” may never have had the chance to see Griffith’s original film in the first place–certainly, not on a large screen in a theatrical or auditorium setting for a public performance of any kind.
Which leads, in my mind, to the next question. Cliche though the phrases may be, I think it is still apt to observe that attacking “Birth” today is like kicking a wounded lion or beating a dead horse. I remember when I first saw the film as a youth in the 1960s, audiences (perhaps partly out of nervousness) used to laugh continually in the wrong places. So in my experience, I would hardly say that its showings turned audiences into a raging mass of Southern sympathizers. Support for the film by the American political establishment, whether right, left or center, is virtually non-existent today. Even the present crop of Confederate flag-wavers who think secession was great and Lincoln was a murderous, invading tyrant are none too happy with the film’s very sympathetic portrayal of Honest Abe and its suggestion that the South’s attempt to leave the Union was an act of destructive folly. I suppose people can point to a tiny fringe of KKK members who still like to show the film (the shorter 1930 sound reissue only–such is their attention span) because of its climax. But to say that “The Birth” is some kind of icon of part of the American establishment (the way John Wayne, for example, is) would be downright silly. So why is DJ Spooky expending his energies on “unmasking” an easy, convenient target? I find nothing bold or courageous in such an enterprise. It’s not like he’s attacking the rich and powerful.
This leads directly to the fact that Griffith himself has been so publicly dishonored in recent years in his own country. Not that there were a lot of formal honors to begin with. Cinema appreciation has not yet reached such a level that there are national monuments or museums for most film artists of the past. But the few things that commemorated Griffith were stripped away a few years ago as I’ve mentioned. The Red Grooms sculptures were removed to a less central place on the NKU campus and, of course, most notoriously, the DGA disowned Griffith when they dropped the Lifetime Achievement Award bearing his name. I know of no other major American historical figure who has been so suddenly abandoned by the establishment because of controversies attached to his name. And in the case of Griffith, it was not because of some sudden discovery of hitherto unknown “shocking” information about him or because Americans were more racially sensitive than they had been in 1975 when he was honored by the U.S. government itself with a commemorative stamp. No, it’s because with the deaths of all his close associates and the entire generation of directors who were most closely influenced by him–from Allan Dwan and King Vidor to Orson Welles and John Huston–there has been almost no challenge to those who seek to demonize him, painting him as a villainous, destructive figure unworthy of being honored. So, like the film itself, Griffith is an easy, convenient target, an artist who left only a small estate with no foundations or direct heirs to perpetuate his name. Once again, why does DJ Spooky feel compelled to go after the powerless and have himself represented as some sort of dragon-slayer?
I would be interested in finding out from Brad Reeves if DJ Spooky’s “Rebirth” includes any images from the first part of the film aside from the plantation sequences. In particular, did he include any of the scenes depicting the Civil War? Chris Jones’ Chicago Tribune review did not even acknowledge that the film is about the Civil War. This is a new feature in the campaign against the film and Griffith that I first noticed five years ago in the newspaper articles attempting to justify the DGA’s disavowal of DWG. In the new climate, the film is only about the KKK with no mention of the fact that the film places its existence as a direct result of a highly destructive war. Not only have the anti-Griffith forces succeeded in making most of the public forget all his other films and their compassionate social vision, they have even tried to blot out in the public consciousness the entire first half of “The Birth of a Nation” portraying the devastation and heartbreak of war. Judging from the Trib review, it would seem that DJ Spooky’s “Rebirth” project has all but eliminated Griffith’s images of the Civil War.
In summary, I’d appreciate it if you might share this letter with Brad Reeves and, assuming there is a public forum after DJ Spooky’s “Rebirth” presentation, I think it would be appropriate to ask him: (1) what is his response to the fact that the original film itself has been all but banned in this country due to violent threats?; (2) how does he feel he is unmasking the powerful (if that is his goal) when both the film and its director have been repudiated by most established opinion here?; (3) how does he defend the fact that all of Griffith’s other films, with their still relevant depictions of oppression and injustice, have been forgotten, and that even the representation of the horrors of war in “The Birth of a Nation” itself has now been obscured in the public consciousness?

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew

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30.

Dear Reg,

Just in today is another article on DJ Spooky’s “revision” of “Birth.” The article, entitled “The Exorcism of a Racist Film” gives you an idea of where its author is coming from and gives further details on DJ Spooky’s project. The article is at: <http://www.vnews.com/01182005/2204240.htm> In my opinion, however, it is no more necessary to cut up “The Birth” into rearranged pieces to produce a different or alternative meaning (as DJ Spooky is doing) than stage producers have found it essential to destroy the texts’ of Shakespeare’s plays in order to come up with interpretations of them that are far different than traditional readings, that, indeed, may appear to be directly contrary to what Shakespeare’s audiences apparently believed. In his own day, “The Merchant of Venice” very likely was viewed by most Elizabethan playgoers as a simple triumph of the good Christians over the evil Christians. Yet today, Shylock’s fate is often played as a tragic miscarriage of justice rather than the triumph of the forces of righteousness. “Henry V” has customarily been thought of as the glorification of a heroic warrior king and his remarkable and just victory, in the face of great odds, over a set of decadent fops. Accordingly, there were many critics over the years, including William Hazlitt and George Bernard Shaw, who dismissed the play as jingoistic propaganda. Even recently, Bush supporters used Shakespeare’s play as a rallying point to justify their invasion of Iraq. (<http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2003-05-01-henryv.shtml>) Yet at the very same time that the ideologues for the Bush administration were using “Henry V” in this way, there were others, including producers of several new stage versions, that reinterpreted this very same drama as an elegy on the horrors of war. (<http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=3109&tmpl=whatsonreviews>) I realize there is one obvious difference between the two art forms and works of art. The text of “Henry V” is made up entirely of words which can be staged in virtually any kind of background–hence, the radical revisionist staging in this National Theatre production is possible without abandoning the Bard’s words and dramatic construction entirely. (Whether I agree with all the choices cited in the reviews of this production or not–personally, I don’t–it is still a production of Shakespeare’s play rather than some scattered lines of his cut up and spliced in with other items in an effort to extract a meaning that undermines totally the playwright’s presumed message.) In the case of “The Birth of a Nation,” its text is the silent film itself. As such, it would be possible, in my view, to produce a different interpretation of the film, not by cutting it into pieces nor (obviously) resorting to some sort of digital magic in the future by placing all the characters in modern dress, but simply by “restaging” it with, as I have suggested, live narrators providing commentary and dialogue for the characters (the Japanese-style “benshi” tradition) or providing a new musical score that lends a decidedly alternative meaning to the film’s images. For example, one could use the same sad music to score both the scenes of Flora lying in state and the shots of Gus’ body being thrown on the steps, thereby equating the two as ultimately both victims of the tragedy of war and its aftermath. The dark strain of a funeral march could counterpoint more upbeat-sounding music in the scenes of the slaves dancing in Part 1 and the march of the Klan near the end of the film, thereby conveying the sense of the Civil War-Reconstruction era as a cyclical, unresolved tragedy for both blacks and whites, Northerners and Southerners. I am not saying that this or any other possible reading of the film that leaves Griffith’s images intact would be the best or most appropriate (just as I have my doubts that the National Theatre production of “Henry V” in 2003 truly represents Shakespeare’s intentions), but it would have as a starting point the idea that “The Birth of a Nation” (that is, the text of the silent film itself) is a work of art and Griffith an artist. Once you start with that premise, any number of interpretations are possible without turning the entire evening (or afternoon) into a travesty. As I’ve said before, no matter who decided on the idea, I think that having a woman in the audience scream at the time Flora jumped was aesthetically a terrible idea. Since I had never heard that before, I’m still inclined to think it may have been confined to the film’s Los Angeles run and would not have been a feature of every screening of the film nationwide during its original run. (I rather doubt that a woman screaming live would have been included in the presentation of the film for President Wilson in the White House.) One problem I have with it, apart from the crudity of its inclusion in the presentation, is how do we know Flora does scream during her leap? Since she is not pushed off by Gus or accidentally falls, I could just as well assume that she maintains a stoic quiet as she purposefully jumps rather than uttering a scream which, under the circumstances, would have served no purpose. Again, with just the text of the silent film as a guide, one could interpret the absent sound of this sequence in different ways.
Getting back to DJ Spooky’s project, it seems to me that, having acted on the assumption that the text of Griffith’s film is nothing more than a simplistic propaganda piece (no matter how technically advanced it was), he is consciously trying himself to create (with dubious success, it appears) a presentation that is being deliberately staged as propaganda of his own (counter-propaganda, in his view) to manipulate the spectators. In refusing to see Griffith as a complex, multi-faceted artist whose work is capable of a wide variety of interpretations (a la Shakespeare’s “Henry V”), DJ Spooky and his supporters have tried to reduce “The Birth of a Nation” to little more than a piece of ephemeral propaganda from the past, a worn-out, discredited piece of “agit-prop,” the newsreel of a fallen totalitarian regime, rather than a living work of art that merits respect on its own terms, despite radical shifts in values and changing perspectives that can result in alternative interpretations of the artist’s work.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
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31.

Dear Reg,

In my haste to get off my latest e-mail and link to you, I notice I made an obvious error in referring to “The Merchant of Venice.” Of course, I meant to write that Shakespeare’s audience most likely viewed this play as the triumph of the good Christians over the evil Jews and that modern sensibilities have sought to produce different readings of the play in more recent decades.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
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32.
Dear Reg,

In order to clarify some details you may have seen me allude to in material I have sent you, I’m including in this e-mail an article of mine on how Griffith was vilified through the use of an entirely fictional story presented as fact in a widely-seen and highly praised PBS documentary which had its premiere in 1994. I originally wrote the following as a letter to people at PBS shortly after seeing this program in 1994 (a letter for which I received no reply). Some years later, in 1997, when I had joined the Internet, I had this piece published online by the Silents Majority website. Unfortunately, the website shut down a couple of years ago. I am thinking of having this article republished elsewhere on the web since the fiction I cite in the article is, I have heard from some people, still being circulated as fact in several quarters. Also, the article I wrote in 2000 on the DGA’s dishonoring Griffith (retitled without my permission “PC Madness in Hollywood”) now seems to have disappeared from the Internet, although it was picked up and reprinted by several other sources, also without my knowledge or permission. Under the circumstances, perhaps it’s just as well, given I feel that it was my most compromised piece of writing on the subject.
I don’t want to give the impression that all I do is write opinion pieces on Griffith and “The Birth.” What you are seeing is the product of months, indeed years of study and reflection on my part. Most of my spare cinematic time these days, however, is taken up with other things, such as my research into the silent films of Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia. Still, I thought I should provide you with as much of this material as I could, to give you as full a view of the controversy from my own experience as possible. What follows, therefore, is my article as it was published online in 1997:

Taking “Midnight Ramble” to Task
By William M. Drew
Copyright © 1994 and 1997, by William M. Drew. All rights reserved
As a film historian whose writings on the early cinema include the book D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision (McFarland, 1986), I feel it is imperative to point out that one of the anecdotes presented as fact in the documentary Midnight Ramble: The Story of the Black Film Industry is entirely fictitious and should not have been included in a program claiming to be accurate.

The anecdote to which I’m referring was related by writer Carlton Moss and concerns a black maid named Cora allegedly employed by D.W. Griffith at the time of The Birth of a Nation (David W. Griffith Corp., for Epoch Producing Corp., 1915). Moss recounted that Griffith gave her tickets to see the film and after she did so, she supposedly told the director, “I’m ashamed of you,” saying that she had named her son David after him and was changing the boy’s name because of the injustice done to her people by the film. “Goodbye!” he quotes her as saying as she left his employ for good.

The problem with this whole episode, presented in the show in order to discredit D.W. Griffith, is that not only is there no record that this conversation ever took place, there is not even any evidence that Cora the maid existed. After years of research, I can only report one source for this anecdote, Homer Croy’s highly fictionalized “biography,” Star Maker: The Story of D.W. Griffith. The book dates from a time when biographies of deceased film personalities (e.g., Irving Shulman’s 1964 biography of Jean Harlow) often relied heavily on a maximum of fiction and a minimum of research. Croy (1883-1965) was a popular white novelist and screenwriter of Griffith’s generation who met the director only once. When his book appeared in 1959, it was roundly criticized by reviewers. Edward Wagenknecht wrote in The Chicago Sunday Tribune: “Star Maker is naive and superficial, full of invented conversations, marred by horrible inaccuracies.” The reviewer for Kirkus stated: “The general reader will be deterred by its repetitions and its endless fictional conversations.” G.D. McDonald noted in Library Journal: “A rather casual narrative, with invented conversation, of Griffith’s career.” And Arthur Mayer stated in The New York Herald Tribune: “So many errors of fact that it would take a lengthy review to recapitulate them all.” Alanna Nash, who did extensive research on Griffith in the 1970’s, commented in the journal Take One in 1975: “For years the only Griffith biography in existence, this is probably the worst account of him between two covers. Totally unreliable.” Croy had no particular political or racial axe to grind and apparently no ties to the black community of his day. Being the novelist he was, he simply created the story of Griffith and Cora the maid because he thought it would make a good dramatic story.

But the fact is that there is no corroboration for this anecdote or even any mention of the maid in any other source. This includes the scholarly biographies of Griffith by Robert M. Henderson (published in 1972) and Richard Schickel (published in 1984), the autobiographies of Griffith’s associates, Lillian Gish, Karl Brown and Billy Bitzer as well as Griffith’s own unfinished autobiography completed with extensive additions by James Hart in 1972. There would have been only two parties to the conversation as related by Croy. He certainly did not interview the maid over forty years after she supposedly left D.W.’s service and the story is not the sort of thing Griffith would have related to other people. Yet although this is obviously a fictional concoction with no verification, Thomas Cripps (listed as a researcher for the documentary in question) repeated the story as authentic in abbreviated form in his otherwise well-researched albeit highly superficial 1977 study of blacks in films, Slow Fade to Black, attributing the anecdote solely to Croy. But it was only in Carlton Moss’s account that Croy’s invention was repeated virtually word for word as though it had been an actual occurrence. Apparently, Moss had read Croy’s book years ago and uncritically accepted it as factual, remembering in particular this story.

This might seem a great amount of space devoted to this one portion of the documentary but, in truth, it is indicative of how a potentially excellent treatment of a fascinating, historically and artistically valuable aspect of film history – the early black filmmakers – was marred by the undisguised hatred and distorted viewpoint of the writer and some of the commentators. Carlton Moss had worked with Frank Capra on the documentary, The Negro Soldier, and according to Capra, “wore his blackness as conspicuously as a bandaged head.” Repeatedly, Capra would have to rewrite his angry material, pointing out that “We must persuade and convince, not by rage but by reason.” Clyde Taylor, the chief writer for Midnight Ramble, has a hatred for Griffith bordering on the extreme as evidenced by the vicious diatribe on The Birth of a Nation he wrote for the journal Wide Angle several years ago. PBS has demonstrated a double standard in connection with Griffith and The Birth of a Nation. When Kevin Brownlow was working on his documentary on Griffith a few years ago for American Masters, the PBS producers insisted that Brownlow include a black spokesman to comment on the director and The Birth of a Nation. But in the case of Midnight Ramble, there seems to have been no effort on the part of PBS to counter-balance the views presented in the documentary or even to check it for accuracy.

Unlike what Mr. Taylor and his associates would appear to believe, I do not think black people were so mentally inert that almost the sole reason they went into film production on a serious level was because of the allegedly heinous crime perpetrated by Griffith in The Birth of a Nation. I feel black people such as Oscar Micheaux moved into filmmaking in the silent era primarily for the same reason they wrote books and composed music – because it was an exciting artistic medium that offered scope for their talents. Griffith was the greatest and most influential director of his time so it is understandable that his films would have had an impact. The remarkable clips in the documentary reveal that Micheaux in the early days was a far more accomplished filmmaker than many had thought – and that whether he was willing to acknowledge it publicly or not, he had an undeniable admiration for Griffith. Clearly, Griffith’s visionary penchant for dramatic situations that incorporated but transcended melodrama, his powerful editing style, treatment of controversial themes and Jeffersonian sympathy for agrarian people had a far greater impact on Micheaux than the early trick films of Melies, the stately Italian spectacles, the sophisticated comedies of De Mille and Lubitsch, the naturalistic studies of von Stroheim, the delicate social observations of Lois Weber, the mysticism of Rex Ingram or the “angst” of the German expressionist films.

In his 23 years as a filmmaker, Griffith not once but many times took a progressive stand. He championed the rights of the Native Americans and of women in a number of films, opposed war, capital punishment and the rapacious capitalism of his day in Intolerance (Wark Producing Corporation, 1916), supported the original goals of the French Revolution in Orphans of the Storm (United Artists, 1921) and denounced the false racist assumptions many whites held about the Chinese in Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, for United Artists, 1919). He even became the first filmmaker to show the Klan in an unfavorable light in an early film, The Rose of Kentucky (Biograph, 1911). Putting his money where his mouth was, when he made his 1916 magnum opus, Intolerance, with its pro-labor Modern Story, he became the first filmmaker in Hollywood history to employ union labor at a time when Los Angeles was largely an open-shop town. Griffith, himself a former laborer, provided the unions with a much-needed breakthrough. They endorsed the film and the unionization of the film industry began. As for The Birth of a Nation, it must be remembered that Griffith was responding to what he regarded as the stereotyping of his people by the North, attitudes he felt had been used to justify the destruction by war and occupation of his native region.

The prolonged attack on Griffith employing a fictitious story was presumably intended by the makers of Midnight Ramble to bolster the stature of early black filmmakers, especially Oscar Micheaux whose recognition, I agree, is long overdue. But the approach they undertook is ultimately self-defeating. Micheaux is not even mentioned in such standard sources as Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia (first edition only), published in 1979, whereas Griffith is an artist of world-wide, not merely American stature. To deride the humanity and accomplishments of Griffith in the hope that it will somehow enhance the reputation of the gifted, but previously obscure, Micheaux is a political fantasy of the most naive kind if indeed it is not outright cultural barbarism. Micheaux’s status as a maverick artist in the industry is something he actually shares with Griffith along with thematic interests. And like Griffith, Micheaux, too, eventually found himself the object of criticism for not being “politically correct” as the documentary made clear without recognizing the parallels.

The whole thing is such a shame. A more honest, less hate-filled approach could have served to incorporate the achievements of the early black filmmakers not only into American but world film history instead of remaining a forgotten, marginalized footnote. Some twenty years ago, I had proposed to PBS a history of world filmmaking in the silent era which would have included Micheaux and other early black filmmakers. The project was turned down because it was deemed too ambitious. But as part of my all-consuming obsession with early films, I was looking forward to Midnight Ramble. Imagine my disappointment when what could have been a positive record of artistic achievement turned into another divisive diatribe!

To conclude, it should be noted that The Birth of a Nation states in its main title it is based on a novel, an acknowledgment it contains fictional material, whereas a documentary is by its very definition supposed to be a record of authenticated facts. So before Cora the black maid who stood up to D.W. Griffith is turned into another Sojourner Truth or Rosa Parks, let me repeat what I said at the outset: there is no evidence that the woman even existed, let alone that the conversation ever took place except in the imagination of a white fiction writer who had no interest in historical accuracy.

Copyright © 1994 and 1997, by William M. Drew, at ReelDrew@aol.com. All Rights Reserved

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Copyright © 1997, Diane MacIntyre, The Silents Majority, at mdle@primenet.com. All rights reserved

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33.

Just did some more searching and I found the reprint of my article, which I originally titled “The DGA vs. DWG: Anatomy of a Controversy,” but whose title was changed (without my knowledge or permission) by the editors of “Heterodoxy” (the original publisher) to “PC Madness in Hollywood.” I do not claim to be an expert on “PC Madness in Hollywood,” and while much of the subject matter and the points I made here will be very familiar to you by now, this article does provide some more details about the DGA’s late 1999 decision to dishonor Griffith as I understood it at the time I wrote this article in early 2000. In any case, I thought it might be useful to bring this piece of mine to your attention to complete your familiarity with my involvement in this issue, and also to give you a much fuller account of the most notorious action so far taken against Griffith. It can be read at: http://www.theunjustmedia.com/pc%20madness%20in%20hollywood.htm <http://www.theunjustmedia.com/pc madness in hollywood.htm>

I’m looking forward to more of your impressions about this controversy after you’ve had the time to read through all the material I have sent you within the last 24 hours.

Warmest regards,
William M. Drew
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34. PC Madness in Hollywood

by William Drew
Heterodoxy <http://www.cspc.org/het/> | January 2000
NOTHING MORE CLEARLY ILLUSTRATES the complete surrender of the current Hollywood establishment to political correctness than the December 15, 1999, announcement by the Directors Guild of America that, by a unanimous vote of their national board, they were dropping their prestigious D. W. Griffith Award. Established in 1953 as a means of posthumously honoring the great pioneer director who revolutionized film art, the award was the guild’s highest recognition of a director’s body of work and had been given to such illustrious names as Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford, King Vidor, Frank Capra, William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, John Huston, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, and Francis Ford Coppola. But now, citing Griffith’s fostering of “intolerable racial stereotypes,” DGA’s current president, Jack Shea, said that on the eve of a new millennium the guild (representing all the professional movie and TV directors in the United States of America) needed a better symbol for the new age. Shea’s words prompted an immediate outcry from film historians like Kevin Brownlow, who said he was “dismayed” by the DGA’s decision, while the National Society of Film Critics, the leading association of U.S. film critics, deplored the move as “a depressing example of ‘political correctness’ as an erasure and rewriting of American film history, causing a grave disservice to the reputation of a pioneering American filmmaker.”
In so publicly rejecting the founding father of cinema as an art form, the DGA has not only rejected an American legend, but cast aspersions on its own traditions as well. Not only has Griffith long been recognized throughout the world for the centrality of his contributions to filmmaking by most film historians and filmmakers irrespective of their politics, but the DGA itself paid homage to his historic role when they bestowed upon him their first lifetime membership in 1938. While Griffith’s great Civil War-Reconstruction film, The Birth of a Nation, has caused controversy since its first showing in 1915, major American filmmakers, like Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles, apparently never saw any conflict between their support of liberal causes and their unswerving admiration for Griffith.
The artist whom the DGA tried to airbrush out of history on the basis of one-half of one film was a complex, at times contradictory figure whose work is remarkable for its productivity (some 450 films), its creative innovation, and its social vision. Born on January 22, 1875, into a Kentucky family left impoverished by the Civil War, Griffith struggled throughout his early years, earning his way as a traveling actor. His artistic salvation came not from the traditional world of literature and theatre to which he aspired but in the new medium of the motion picture when he began his extraordinary directorial career with the Biograph Company in 1908. During his five years there, he transformed the cinema from entertainment into art. His greatness lay not simply in his development of the basic grammar of narrative film but in his use of the new medium to express a distinctive vision. To convey this vision, he drew from his players, like Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, and Lillian and Dorothy Gish, a new, more restrained acting style wholly different from that of the stage and able to communicate powerful emotions directly to an audience studying their faces close up. His characteristic social themes, far from racist, championed the rights of the American Indians, whom he saw as the victims of white oppression, in films like The Redman’s View (1909) and Ramona (1910). He deplored the depredations of wealth and power in films such as A Corner in Wheat (1909) and became the first filmmaker to show the Ku Klux Klan in an unfavorable light in The Rose of Kentucky (1911). He focused his camera <http://0-2u.com/?go=camera> on scenes of urban poverty in What Shall We Do With Our Old? (1910) and The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and projected in many of his films a new, more assertive heroine in keeping with the aspirations of the suffragette era.
When Griffith began making features for his own independent company in 1913, he projected this social vision in classics such as the 1916 epic Intolerance, intercutting four parallel stories from different ages as a way of opposing war, capital punishment, Prohibition, and the rapacious capitalism of his day. In Broken Blossoms (1919), he denounced the false racist assumptions many whites held about the Chinese. In Way Down East (1920), he attacked the repression of women, and in Orphans of the Storm (1921), he supported the original goals of the French Revolution while decrying its later slide towards dictatorship and anarchy. He endorsed women’s suffrage and became the first filmmaker in Hollywood history to employ union labor at a time when Los Angeles was largely an open-shop town.
Yet the Directors Guild ignored this remarkable accomplishment, unequalled by any other figure in film history, because of Birth of a Nation. The film was an unprecedented box-office triumph in 1915, winning acclaim for its spectacular Civil War scenes balanced with the more intimate human scenes of its protagonists. Yet the film’s portrayal of the Reconstruction period as a reign of terror in which white Southerners were saved by the Ku Klux Klan from black mobs incited by the Northern occupiers-a view that Ulrich Phillips and other historians of the day had made into a leading interpretation of these events-touched off a storm of criticism around the country. Joining in the NAACP’s campaign against the film were both liberal and conservative supporters of black interests and the Union cause. Despite the many attempts to ban it, the film remained the cinema’s biggest hit in the United States until the release of King Vidor’s World War I epic, The Big Parade, a decade later.
Apart from ongoing NAACP opposition, the controversy tended to subside somewhat over the years as the film garnered recognition as the American cinema’s first acknowledged masterwork, despite its politics. But controversy reappeared in the late 1930s and early 1940s when the cause was taken up by American Communists. Linking revivals of The Birth of a Nation with the immense publicity surrounding the new Civil War epic Gone With the Wind, the organized left, in an attempt to win greater influence in the black community, attacked both films as racist propaganda. They began circulating rumors about Griffith, which are still repeated today, that all black roles in the film were played by whites in blackface. Ironically, in view of this criticism by the American left, Griffith recalled in later years that he had been called a Communist himself “when Intolerance was branded radical and dangerous.” Yet the American Stalinists of the 1940s rarely if ever took note of the fact that Griffith at the peak of his career had contacts with anti-war leftists like Max Eastman and was favorably reviewed by such socialist publications as The New York Call at a time when many of his films were being shown throughout revolutionary Russia. Later on, although some of Griffith’s strongest admirers were independent-minded leftists, like writer James Agee, social critic Paul Goodman, and even documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio (Point of Order), the orthodox left, reincarnated as a “New” Left, continued the attack. The culmination of their protests occurred in 1980, when a lily-white Berkeley-based group of radicals calling itself the International Coalition Against Racism stormed a San Francisco revival house showing The Birth of a Nation, vandalizing the theatre, destroying projection equipment, and burning the print of the film. Largely as a result of this incident, theatrical screenings of Birth, once a staple of revival houses, have become very rare.
A common and fallacious charge against Griffith’s film is that it provoked bloody confrontations between blacks and whites. (Performances of Thomas Dixon’s more overtly racist play, The Clansman, on which Birth was based, did inflame racial tensions and, in some instances, led to violence.) Similarly, it is commonly accepted that Birth bears the primary responsibility for the reappearance of the Ku Klux Klan, a simplistic explanation offered up in lieu of a more sophisticated analysis of the facts. In fact, the Klan, comprised for the most part of nativist, white Protestants, emerged as a mass movement in the early 1920s as a result of the climate created first by the sedition laws and anti-German propaganda during World War I, then followed by the post-war Red Scare and the reaction to demands by minorities and labor for greater equality. Had Griffith never made Birth, there is little doubt that the Klan or a similar group would have emerged in response to the war and post-war environment. Indeed, few of the critics of the film have ever acknowledged Griffith’s stated purpose in making The Birth of a Nation-to reveal to the spectator “the ravages of war to the end that war may be held in abhorrence.” Also lost was the fact that, in developing his theme, the director took pains to soften the glaring racism of Dixon’s original narrative. In his 1988 book, The “I” of the Camera <http://0-29.com/?go=camera>, William Rothman finds in the film the “darker” vision of an artist who recognizes all of humankind as vulnerable to the monstrous forces within.
Griffith’s film certainly provided a dramatic portrayal of the sense of grievances felt by the South in the devastating aftermath of the downfall of the “peculiar institution” of slavery and the way of life it had sustained. When he began work on the film, he told his cast: “Only the winning side in a war ever gets to tell its story.” Griffith had already projected the imagery of defeat in his Biograph works dealing with the Indians. His innovative use of a panoramic landscape shot in Ramona to show the Indian hero watching helplessly from a mountaintop as his village is destroyed by white settlers in the valley below anticipates the famous shots in The Birth of a Southern family weeping on a hilltop while Sherman’s army devastates the valley. This vision, a recurring feature of Griffith’s work, reached its most spectacular heights in the Babylonian story of Intolerance. The most devastating consequences of defeat are surely the eradication of a people’s entire history and civilization-Babylon’s fate when it was conquered by the Persians in 539 B.C. This sense of being vanquished would recur in more intimate films like Broken Blossoms, with its noble Chinese Buddhist hero suffering from the bigotry of “the barbarous Anglo-Saxons, sons of turmoil and strife,” and Isn’t Life Wonderful? in which starving workers in a defeated Germany cry out in despair, “Yes, beasts we are; beasts they have made us-years of war and hell.”
It was his commitment to the survival of cultures and of the individual that made Griffith, with his roots in the Jeffersonian tradition and his admiration for Whitman’s poetry, an eternal foe of regimentation, particularly by those he called the intolerant “think-as-I-think” men who sought to impose their views on society for the ostensible purpose of creating a better world. Invariably, in his films, Griffith saw such efforts as leading to harm, whether it was the carpetbaggers swarming into the South in Birth; the puritanical capitalist in the modern story of Intolerance; or Robespierre in Orphans of the Storm attempting to channel the French Revolution’s democratic aspirations into his own totalitarian Republic of Virtue.
As Cari Beauchamp, author of a widely acclaimed biography of screenwriter Frances Marion, says, since Griffith is the father of modern cinema, content of his works, whether seen positively or negatively, should not be an issue. In her opinion, the award that has borne his name is about directorial accomplishment and commemoration of the artist who made it all possible. As she succinctly puts it, “End of story.”
The DGA is tight-lipped about who first came up with the decision to dump D. W. and to what degree <http://get-data.net/?go=degree> (if any) they were responding to outside pressure. But the decision was made behind closed doors and never included public discussion. Given the fact that Kweisi Mfume, the current head of the NACCP, applauded the DGA’s decision the very day it was announced, declaring they never should have named the award after Griffith in the first place, his organization may have had some input. It would, however, be yet another indication of this organization’s decline, for as far back as 1915, the NAACP magazine The Crisis drew an editorial distinction between Griffith as an “artistic producer” and the subject matter of The Birth of a Nation, to which the organization objected.
But if the NAACP is different from what it once was, so is the film industry. Marc Wanamaker, a Hollywood-based film historian, whose uncle was the late, prominent actor Sam Wanamaker, believes that in an out-of-control PC environment, the Directors Guild dropped the award because it wanted to demonstrate “sensitivity” to its new black members. The DGA may have been swayed by the continual attacks on Griffith and Birth by the new, younger militant black filmmakers, like Spike Lee and John Singleton. Indeed, Singleton carried the war against the film to its most ludicrous extreme when, in 1994, he likened The Birth of a Nation to the Holocaust! In similar vein is a highly acclaimed, widely seen PBS documentary on early black filmmakers entitled Midnight Ramble, first broadcast in 1994. While its subject is nominally the pioneer black film director, Oscar Micheaux, the program spends so much time demonizing Griffith and Birth that the viewer is left with the impression the main reason blacks ever went into filmmaking at all was to respond to D. W.’s epic. In an attempt to discredit Griffith, the documentary presents as fact an alleged confrontation between Griffith and a black maid named Cora who was supposedly so upset by Birth that she angrily left his employ. The problem with the story is that not only did the incident never take place, the maid never existed. The incident and the character were both concoctions of Homer Croy, a white novelist and screenwriter, in his largely fictionalized 1959 “biography” of the director called Star Maker: The Story of D. W. Griffith. In actuality, Griffith’s personal <http://0-29.com/?go=personal> relations with blacks he knew over the years were quite warm. For example, the black actress Mme. Sul-Te-Wan who began her work in the cinema with Birth was one of Griffith’s most loyal friends and one of the few people from the early days he was still seeing when he resided at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel <http://0-days.net/?go=hotel> toward the end of his life. She often said that if both her father and D. W. were drowning, she’d step over her father to save Griffith.
Also influencing the DGA decision (if only subliminally) were those simplistic “greatest of the century” lists that began to appear during the countdown to the millennium. Amidst great fanfare, the American Film Institute in 1998 announced their selection of the 100 greatest American films of the cinema’s first century. Among them was The Birth of a Nation but not Intolerance, even though in 1977, the AFI’s choice of 50 greatest American films had included both Griffith epics. By focusing only on Birth to the exclusion of Griffith’s other works, the AFI’s 1998 choice reignited the controversy and reignited the NAACP as well. Another link in the chain was Time’s 1998 list of the 100 most influential figures of the twentieth century. By any standards, the one motion-picture director who should have been selected was the acknowledged creator of film grammar, D. W. Griffith. But aside from Chaplin (who was chosen primarily as a star), the only film director on Time’s list was Steven Spielberg. Although Spielberg may be the most powerful man in Hollywood today (and some might say Washington as well), he can hardly be said to have influenced the whole course of twentieth-century cinema. That distinction belongs to Griffith alone. While Spielberg may have picked up an award from the NAACP and has White House connections, Griffith’s political and social influence was much more profound. His work, after all, greatly impressed such leaders as Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, and even V. I. Lenin.
Given all these developments, it may be that the DGA’s move against Griffith was sadly inevitable. It’s not clear how many of the DGA’s board members might have been motivated by genuine ideological fervor in casting the unanimous vote. Nor is it certain that any of them have a strong knowledge or appreciation of early film history. Current board members include such well-known veteran directors as Arthur Penn, John Frankenheimer, and Paul Mazursky, all of whom entered the world of filmmaking through their work in TV during the 1950s and early 1960s and were too young to have seen Griffith’s major films when they were first released. (When Ezra Goodman, the last journalist to interview Griffith, met Frankenheimer in the late 1950s, he was struck by how little the newcomer from TV seemed to know about film history.) The DGA’s current president, 71-year-old Jack Shea, is a failed feature-film director who has earned his bread and butter by directing episodes of numerous TV series, among them, Designing Women, produced by the First Family’s good friends, the Thomasons.
In any case, the DGA’s move against Griffith is indicative of the extent to which political correctness now guides the thinking of some of the most influential members of the Hollywood community today. Since content has been raised as the only issue in the DGA’s dishonoring Griffith, Guild members have simply dug another hole for themselves in which they will struggle to find another great, departed director whose name on the award might make them feel more comfortable. With the Guild’s board having established political purity in matters of race as an apparent absolute, the vast majority of Hollywood’s great filmmakers from its golden age would be as unacceptable to them as Griffith, no matter how many humanistic ideals underlie much of their work. John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, King Vidor, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, Howard Hawks, Lewis Milestone, William Wyler, George Stevens, John Huston-all of these and many more could also be accused of helping foster “intolerable racial stereotypes” somewhere in their films, whether this involves the use of black comedy stereotypes, depicting Indians as merciless savages in innumerable westerns, or making anti-Japanese propaganda movies during World War II. Furthermore, the DGA’s decision, in light of Hollywood’s current output, is highly hypocritical. After all, as film historian Christopher Jacobs points out in an article on the controversy for The High Plains Reader, “the Hollywood establishment that has now rejected Griffith continues to perpetuate and encourage stereotypes-ethnic, racial, religious, and otherwise.” The hypocrisy was all too evident when in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, screenwriter Ted Elliott defended the DGA’s action, citing the “racism” in Birth as the appropriate reason for renouncing Griffith. Yet Elliott himself has been targeted for his lack of political correctness in the Disney cartoon version of Aladdin, which he co-authored, widely criticized by many Arab groups for what they regard as its insulting racial stereotypes of Arabs!
But even beyond the issue of racial stereotyping, there are other issues of content where the film community today comes up short. As Kevin Brownlow remarks, so much of Hollywood filmmaking today is saturated with mindless, graphic, and gratuitous violence, images whose constancy and realism have the potential for inciting people to act out what they have seen on the screen. How, then, can Hollywood’s current filmmakers feel that they have a moral entitlement to disavow D. W. Griffith?
Perhaps the most unsettling thing about the DGA board’s unanimous decision in repudiating Griffith is that these individuals are in theory, at least, artists themselves and, one would hope, sophisticated enough to appreciate the complexities of history and of the human heart in all its mysteries and apparent contradictions. The fact that they dropped Griffith without any exploration or discussion of his art or the rich content of his work indicates a simplistic mindset on their part, something which does not bode well for the content of current American filmmaking. Those critics who are bent on obliterating Griffith from Hollywood’s history would argue that what they see as the negative attitudes in The Birth of a Nation outweigh the artistry of his total output. Using such reasoning as this, one could contend that any artist who runs afoul of a radically changed political and cultural environment should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Yet in sharp contrast to Griffith’s fate in PC-ridden America, his great Soviet counterpart, Sergei Eisenstein, continues to be officially honored in today’s Russia. In film history, Griffith’s name is traditionally linked with Eisenstein’s as a master of montage, and Eisenstein always acknowledged his indebtedness to the American filmmaker whom he called “the grand old man of us all.”
As the Soviet Union began to fall apart a decade ago, it was conceivable that Eisenstein, like Griffith, might be identified with a politically incorrect version of history in his own country now that the revolution he supported and the system which had commissioned his films were discredited. Both in Russia and outside, more and more critics were dismissing Eisenstein (along with the Soviet cinema, which he had come to symbolize) as an outdated reminder of a totalitarian past that deserved to be forgotten. Like The Birth of a Nation, which had been blamed for America’s racial ills, some writers were now claiming that Eisenstein’s silent films had helped pave the way for the far greater horrors of collectivization and the purges by providing cinematic justification for these policies. As his centenary loomed, it was a matter of considerable import from the standpoint of film history how Eisenstein would be remembered (if at all) in the new post-Communist Russia. The answer came on the 100th anniversary of his birth, January 23, 1998, when the Bank of Russia issued two minted commemorative coins bearing Eisenstein’s name and portrait. On the back of both is the old double-headed eagle that has supplanted the hammer and sickle of the Communist regime. But what has not been supplanted in the new Russia is an abiding respect for the cinematic genius whose works stirred audiences around the world.
Eisenstein, of course, became the ultimate martyr to an orthodox, politically correct view of history when his cinematic depiction of Ivan the Terrible’s tyranny caused a rift with Stalin that hounded him to an early grave. Despite periods of repression like World War I, the America of Griffith’s day, by contrast, allowed for a diversity of historical interpretation, paradoxically preventing the country from fragmentation. Thus, Griffith’s presentation of the suffering and sacrifice of the old South in The Birth of a Nation coexisted with the graphic depictions of the horrors of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most often filmed story in the silent era. The same audiences that thrilled to the stirring portrayals of the Western movement in The Covered Wagon and The Iron Horse were moved by the dramatization of the plight of Western expansion’s foremost victims, the American Indian, in films like The Vanishing American. W. S. Van Dyke’s White Shadows in the South Seas also attacked racism.
For those whose imaginations have been formed within the tunnel vision of political correctness, however, the past does not exist. Only now in this alleged enlightened age of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are the American people finally being instructed in the evils of racism. As evidenced by the DGA’s dishonoring of Griffith, such PC triumphalism has inevitably struck a chord with the current Hollywood establishment heedless of its own tradition and forever claiming, in the true spirit of commercialism, that the new is better than the old. The Guild’s action in removing the most significant commemoration of the director in the film capital is all too indicative of the narrow view of history they want to impose on the rest of us. In their hands, “today is the first day of the rest of your life” is a totalitarian slogan.
Mr. Drew has written several books on film history, including D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision.
© 2000 Center for the Study of Popular Culture
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35. Read Israel Shahak’s JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION. I bought this book when a local reviewer got under savage attack from many Jews for writing about it. Gore Vidal, who provides a forward was attacked also as was Noam Chomsky for praising it with these words, “Shahak is an outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge. His work is informed and penetrating, a contribution of great value.”
<http://www.wernercohn.com/Shahak.html>
<http://www.robotwisdom.com/issues/shahak.html>
<http://www.wrmea.com/archives/october01/0110071.html>
<http://www.socialistworker.org/2001/373/373_13_IsraelShahak.shtml>
<http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jewhis.htm>
<http://www.marxists.de/middleast/press/shahak.htm>
<http://lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/israel_shahak.htm>
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36.